


Constellations

by H0mestuck (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: And angst, Angst, Cancer, Christmas, Dave gets sick, Depression, Discovery, Fluff, Highschoolstuck, Homestuck - Freeform, Hospitals, Humanstuck, Leukemia, Lots of Angst, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Panic Attacks, Porrim's a therapist, Recovery, Road Trips, Storms, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, Trans Character, Trans Dave, and john and dave are a little more than moirails, dave and karkat are pretty much moirails, dave's a little shit sometimes, davekat - Freeform, fluffy davekat, happy ending probably, john is an innocent cutie, johndave - Freeform, karkat is also a cutie, platonic davekat, roofs, sad in the beginning, sad with happy fluff eventually, sans-sburb au, sickness fluff, theres fluff because of that too, transtuck, we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/H0mestuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider is not a girl, even if it said that he was on his birth certificate. Thinking this manages to only get him one place, though, and that place is facing an awkward confrontation on the couch where his brothers figure out several things and where he starts over in New York and meets a pale kid he met on the roof (who's dying of cancer, by the way) and a boy who's really good at piano and has a really cute smile.  And even if he can't figure out why, he thinks that just maybe these two are reason enough to live a while longer.</p><p>((Orphaned 8/21/16.  Chances of continuation or rewriting are slim but not impossible. Ask me about it on Tumblr if you have any questions.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act One, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> So this is Constellations, and while I don't know where this story is going myself I'll be here until the end, so it looks like we're in this crazy ride together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter One now edited/partially rewritten [[because holy SHIT my old writing style sucked and I'm rewriting the majority of this story before writing new chapters]]

When you were fourteen it happened for the first time. You, Dove Strider, were at school on your first day of ninth grade, which was also your first day of high school. Everyone seemed to make a big deal about starting high school, but really it was the same as every other school. If anything, you had less freedom than you had in middle school. The teachers were all old and crabby, though, which made two whole differences. You wished that you could say that the kids were a little more mature, as well, but they really weren’t. If anything, they were worse than primary school kids. You think you’d rather be in a room filled with primary school kids, though, because these kids were simply intolerable.

After the teacher spent a total of fifteen minutes explaining to you the protocols of sitting down when class started and not talking to your friends (as if it was your first day of school ever and you all hadn’t heard this speech nine or ten times already that day alone), before telling you all to go and sit wherever for the day. The best part of this room? The teacher had _actually_ put the desks in table groups of four to five desks. You huffed out a sigh, selecting the table closest to the door. There was a group of boys sitting there at the time and you pulled out one of the chairs, moving to sit down before one of them stopped you.

“You can’t sit with us,” one of them scowls at you. You turned your head towards him, inclining your head towards him slightly.

“Why not?” You challenge them boldly. They all scoff.

“Cause you’re a  _girl?_ ” The same one places his books in the seat you were going to take. “Only boys can sit here.” You stare at them. Only boys? What did they mean? For one, this was high school. God, were they six years old? Afraid of girl cooties? Did it actually matter so much that you had to go and find someplace else to sit? You scowl at them but turn and sit at an all-girls table nonetheless.

 

When the end of the day comes you are still hearing the conversation repeated in your head. It had happened a grand total of three times that day. You couldn’t sit with the boys in your science class, you couldn’t play any of the sports with the boys in the free period after lunch, and you couldn’t even choose ‘video games’ as your English topic for your first essay of the year, because your teacher wanted you to pick something less ‘boyish’ and choose something more ‘appropriate for girls,’ like drawing or dancing.

 

You feel just a little bit put-off and confused as you arrive home walk through the door to your apartment at the end of the day. You walk right to the bathroom and you stare at yourself in the mirror. While you spent your day wondering what made you so different from the boys in your class, it’s painfully obvious now. You’ve noticed it before, it’d be kind of hard not to. But, up until now, you’d tried to tell yourself to stop being stupid by being bothered by the difference. Your chest isn’t flat and your hips are too wide to be a boy. Your eyes are too wide and your eyelashes are too long and curled. You frown, troubled by this. All the girls ever wanted to do growing up was dolls or house. You’ve  _always_ hung out with boys. You’ve  _grown up_ with boys. You’ve always dreaded hanging out with girls but you never felt like this before. You’ve never felt to dejected and… wrong. Something here feels  _wrong._ The curves that set you apart from doing what you’d like feel wrong and your eyes make you frown even more deeply. You shrug off the feeling and turn to go back to your bedroom. Bro’s just gotten home and he ruffles your hair.

“Sup, Dove,” he greets you. “How was your first day?” Even the ‘Dove’ in his sentence irks you, which is kind of ironic because it’s your _name,_ for God’s sake.

“Fine,” you murmur in reply, keeping your eyes firmly placed on one of the paintings placed ironically on the wall behind him. When you do look at him, he’s watching you and looks like he’s contemplating saying something.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go clothes shopping?” He asks for the five millionth time this week, changing the subject suddenly in the ADHD way that he always seemed to do. “Seems like all your shirts are getting tattered. Don’t you want something a little more, I dunno, new? Girly?" You frown, shaking your head sternly. You grab your backpack and retreat to your room, closing the door behind you.

            The next time it happens is also at school. Your whole first week has been miserable. You can’t sit with the boys because you’re a girl, but the girls won’t take you either. You’re bitter, you’ll admit. It’s not _your_ goddamn fault you have boobs and like playing in the mud. Can’t you do both? Does it say somewhere in the Constitution that you can’t have both boobs and a passion for getting covered in mud from some kind of sport?  There had been one lingering thought that whole week, a repeating mantra of  _I wish I was a boy_ that won’t stop. It’s still chanting when you’re being stared down in P.E because you want to play on the competitive teams and not the recreational.

“You can’t play football! You’re a girl! All girls can do is paint nails and play dolls! That’s all they’re good for. Go play rec with the other girls.” He’s staring you down and everyone else on his team is nodding and snickering. You’re taken aback. You turn to look at the other girls, they’re staring at you distastefully, completely unbothered by the comments of the boys, which irks you. _Okay for one, that was sexist you little shit, and two, rude._

“We don’t want her!” One protests. “She’s not even like, a real girl.” Your mouth is gaping open at the sheer bluntness they’re all using. You snap your jaw shut, shoot them all a fierce glare and turn on your heel, walking out of the building. You’re fuming, you’re upset. You’re sick of being a girl. You’re in tears, just like a girl. And since when was that a bad thing, you ask yourself. Is it a _bad_ thing to be a girl? Or was it just _you_ that didn’t like being a girl? You slam every door you can until you reach the bathroom once more. You hate what you look like, you hate the curves. You bang open the cabinet doors and toss things aside until you pull out wraps that you used as headbands. The kind-of transparent materiel came in four colors and was wrapped like ACE bandages and you just tore off a bit and used it as a headband. This time you tore off a lot, wrapping it around your chest until it was flat. You grab the scissors from the cabinet and don’t even hesitate to cut off your locks in long snips. You let what’s left shaggily fall around your neck. You fall to the ground, still crying. You forget about the scissors in your hand until you gasp in pain and cradle your slowly bleeding wrist to your chest. You watch the blood drip down, feeling slightly sick to your stomach. The cut that the scissors made is deep, but not deep enough to make you bother mentioning it to one of your brothers so that you can have it checked out. You steal another look in the mirror, biting down on your cheek at your reflection. This isn’t healthy—you know that, don’t you? Of course you know that. So why are you _doing_ it? Do you want to fit in? Do you want attention? There’s no way that you genuinely feel like being a guy, right? You were little when you first started hanging out with guys more than girls. It wasn’t because you _wanted_ to be a guy, it was just that girls only seemed to want to play house and princesses and to dress each other up in frilly get-ups that you hated tugging on. Guys, on the other hand, played with tiny toy dinosaurs and they played sports in the mud outside. You liked mud and dinosaurs more than dresses, you just did. And it felt right to go outside when the sun was just rising to meet the boys at the park to play a round of soccer in the mud before you’d return home covered in the stuff. That felt right. Wearing baggy t-shirts and cargo shorts felt right. Playing with guys and painting your walls dark blue and green felt right. But sometimes, when you’d get pushed into all-girl groups for events or playdates with friends from work, you’d play with the girls. You’d go along with their games, too lazy to pick a fight and try to get your way. You’d tug on those dresses and frilly skirts and it’d just feel wrong. You didn’t fight your way out of them, but you sat uncomfortably in them. They’d paint your nails and talk about princesses and you’d go along with their whims until it was time to go. But princesses and pink felt…wrong. Playing indoors with Barbies’ was boring and you hated it with all your heart. The thing about growing up, though, is that kid’s views change. Boys stop caring if you like mud and dinosaurs and start caring about girls having cooties. Girls stop caring about Barbies’ and start caring about _wow that guy’s cute._ You were left in the awkward middle ground, rejected by the people who you’d played with before and unwilling to go and join the girls with their games of hopscotch and jump rope. You wanted to play _football_ with them—but you couldn’t. You never could, and it was around then that you’d started having the bitter thoughts of ‘being a girl sucks!’ But…you didn’t really hate it enough to do drastic things like this, do you?

Trick question, of course you do. You despise it. You despise every part of it because it feels wrong and who the _fuck_ cares about anything but changing that? You slide back down the wall, bandaging the wound, breathing hard.  You pull on a shirt and sneak to your room, pulling on the baggiest sweater and sweatpants you can find. Glancing in the mirror you are more satisfied than you have ever been. It’s completely hard to breathe but you think it’s worth it. The bandages are binding your chest tighter than you know they should be, if they should be there at all, but you’ve been online for enough of your life to know that it’s a damn good way to get a flat chest without getting a binder. You’re not stupid, you know it’s a horrible idea. You know it’s the wrong way to go about things that it can land you in some pretty dangerous situations, but the thing is that you just plain don’t care anymore. You _want_ this. You want it so badly that you physically ache for it sometimes, so bad that it hurts and jerks tears to your eyes when you’re alone with your thoughts. With a hopeful thought you think maybe if you look more like a boy they won’t be so keen on kicking you out to go to the girls. You are probably wrong.

            You ensure that your arm is covered and you storm into the living room next, where Bro is on the couch. Surely he’s different.

“Bro,” you say in a demanding voice. “Will you let me use your turntables?” He doesn’t even turn around.

“I dunno, Dove. Turntables aren’t really something I’ve ever heard of a girl enjoying.” You blink, astonished and even more upset. The world isn’t fair to girls. He finally turns around and blink in surprise.

“Did Dirk take you get that done?” He asks. You shake your head angrily.

“I did it.” Your voice is flat and you turn around and walk back upstairs, more upset than you’ve ever been.


	2. Act One, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Dove takes binding too far her brothers find out what she's been hiding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second chapter, it's completely short and I apologize for that. This is the last short chapter because next chapter is when it picks up! John comes in in the next chapter and that's when everything finally starts picking up:)
> 
> [[I ADMIT THAT THIS IS A COMPLETE FILLER TO ALLOW THE STORY TO GET GOING.]]

It’s been five months and nothing has changed except for you developing the habit of always binding your chest. It wasn’t a problem up until now, because up until now you didn’t have a problem breathing. Now, though, you’re gasping for breath but can’t get any air into your lungs. You can hear someone hurridly telling your teacher and you see her come over and talk to you but you can’t hear what she’s saying. You can’t breathe and you’re panicking. She picks you up and you end up in the nurses office and you’re clawing at your chest trying to figure out how to breathe. Black invades the corner of your eyes and you feel the nurse catch you as you black out.

 

            When you wake up it’s on your couch and there is a muffled conversation happening in the kitchen. You can breathe fine now and you realize with growing dread that it’s because someone has taken off the bandages. You also realize that your hoodie is gone, and you are just in your T-shirt and shorts. Your arm is freshly wrapped in gauze, covering the previously uncovered red lines running up and down your arm. You pull the blanket further around you and bury your face in the pillow, groaning slightly. The conversation pauses and chairs are pushed back. Feet appear and the couch shifts as you feel someone sit on the couch next to you. The other set of feet sit down on the chair next to you.

“Dove,” Bro is the one next to you. “We need to talk.”

“No we don’t.”

“You could have died.” Dirk, on the couch with you, sounds angry. You wince, curling into yourself. This is why you didn’t tell them. Now they’re gonna kick you out.

“We’re not mad,” Bro says, sounding like he’s chiding Dirk. “We’re just worried, Dove.” You grit your teeth.

“I’m fine.”

“Show me your arm and say that again.” Bro snaps. “Why are you doing that shit, Dove? Why couldn’t you just talk to us?”

“Because you’re just like everyone else!” You snap back, standing up and knocking the blanket off of you. “ _You can’t do that because you’re a girl, Dove!_ Well maybe I don’t want to be a fucking girl! I’m tired of being ignored at school, no one likes me. Everyone’s a jerk and I’m not allowed to do anything I want to do because I’m a girl,” you feel tears gathering in your eyes as you pour out your frustration.  “And I’m different, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was worried about saying anything because there’s something _wrong_ with me.” You breathe out the last part, sinking back into the couch. Neither of your brothers say anything. Bro moves so that you’re all side by side and Dirk puts his arm around your shoulder.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Dove. After you passed out we talked with your nurse and she mentioned some things. Ever heard of transgender?” You shake your head slowly. “It’s where someone’s like, born into the wrong body she said. Like you’re a girl physically but a guy mentally.”

“Like I was supposed to be a guy?” You venture slowly. “Then Mom must have fucked up pretty bad because I’m sure I’m not. That would be cool though, being a guy.”

“Do you wish you were? Is that why…” He doesn’t finish his sentence and he doesn’t need to.

“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t really think about it at first. I was just mad that I wasn’t able to do what I want because I’m a girl. Then I just got fed up with being a girl and it made me so mad that I looked like one and I thought maybe if I didn’t then I wouldn’t get treated like one. I knew that it wasn’t safe but I guess I really didn’t care. It was hard to breathe and made my chest ache but… It was worth it.” Bro frowns at that.

“It’s really fucking dangerous to do that, Dove. You can’t do that shit anymore, okay? Either of it. There’s safer ways to deal with both. Don’t touch the fucking bandages, there’s something else we can get for that, okay? And instead of… doing anything dumb just come talk to one of us or do something to distract yourself. Read a fucking book or break something invaluable or talk to someone online. Just don’t hurt yourself. That shit isn’t cool.” You nod, sighing. You tell them you’re tired and they just nod, standing up.

            You hear them back in the kitchen as you fall back asleep.


	3. Act Two, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sighs loudly* 'Next chapter will be long!'  
> Um, yes. It was. But I got lazy and cut it in half because I haven't had time to write this week.

            Bro gets you binders that you can use instead of the bandages and Dirk checks every once in a while to make sure you haven’t gone back to hurting yourself and talks to you when you’re upset or frustrated. Bro gets an offer to move to a place in New York for work and they agree, deciding that moving would make it easier for you to transition. You go by Dave now and you feel much better.

            At school you still go by Dove and use female pronouns because you don’t want to get bullied any more than you already do for the last week that you’re there, but at home Bro and Dirk are trying their best to remember to call you Dave and he. You get a happy fluttering feeling in your stomach every time Bro ruffles your head and casually calls you ‘little bro’ and you practically break your back with excitement when they let you try out their turntables.

            When you’re actually in the car driving to your new place you’re bored out of your mind, though. Dirk and Bro take turns driving and the one who isn’t driving annoys you to entertain themselves. You’re currently staring at your lockscreen, which makes it look like you can just reach in and let your hand brush the trees of the world that your favorite characters live in. You let your hand reach over… tap the glass. Disappointment floods you briefly but you didn’t expect anything different. You look up and out your window, you’ve been driving for a day and a half now and you’re actually seeing the ocean now. That means you’re close, right?

“Ten more minutes.” You click off your phone and set it in the bag you brought in the car with you. Peering out the window you see the start of a city in the distance and a fluttering feeling fills you. Striders don’t feel scared, but you’re starting to feel a little bit afraid. You’ve got your binder on, you’re wearing a T-shirt and jeans and you cut your hair so it’s short… but what if you don’t pass? No one here will call you Dove but you’re scared someone will find out. You’re scared you look like  a girl. You’re scared you won’t fit in here or something will go wrong. The city is now all around you and you feel a flutter of something else, but this time it’s anticipation.

You’re a Strider. You can take on the city.

 

 

            Your apartment is a little larger than your last one. When you open the door you’re in the living room area and the kitchen is a little ways back. Past the kitchen is another open space that leads to a hallway with four doors. You choose the last room down the hall and push open the door. All the walls are pale white and the carpet is a light cream. You’ll ask about painting the walls. You place your bag on the bed, which was already moved here with the rest of your furniture. It’s all just cluttered around the center, though. You get started moving everything around. Your boxes will be here in a few days, so you have just enough room to maneuver everything. Your desk and computer go by the window, your bed against the wall, your dresser by the bed, posters on the wall. There’s a large empty space but you figure you’ll fill that up somehow. You exit your room, opening the fridge and finding it empty. You frown at this, walking into the living room. Dirk is hooking up the TV.

“Dirk I’m taking your money.” You tell him, shrugging on a coat.

“Why?”

“We don’t have any food.” Dirk look up.

“Shit, yeah. I’ll text you a list of stuff to get, okay?” He hands you a fifty and pushes you out the door. You huff, used to them kicking you out when they didn’t want you in the way.  You set out down the sidewalk once you’re outside and you try to carefully remember the way that you go. You don’t know where anything is, so you just mindlessly walk down the street. You end up at a park, and decide to just sit on a bench and pull up directions. You pull out your phone, pulling up a Google Maps app. Someone sits on the bench next to you and you look up. A boy with black frames is sitting next to you. He has messy black hair and bright blue eyes. You glance away when he looks up.

“Hey,” he greets you.

“Hey.” You murmur back, but you aren’t sure why. Since when do you talk to people you’ve never met? You aren’t trying to be polite, that’s for fucking sure.

“Are you lost?” He notices the app you’ve pulled up. You shrug.

“No. We just moved here today and I went out to go get some food cause we don’t have any and then I realized I have no fucking idea where to get food around here.” Why are you still talking to him? Why are you actually giving him a real answer?

“There’s a Walgreens a little way away from here. I could give you directions if you want?” You nod your head, grateful but not showing it. He pulls out a piece of paper from a notebook he had in the bag over his shoulder and begins to scrawl directions on it, still conversing with you.

“You look about my age. Are you starting school here soon?” You nod again. “Where are you going?”

“Skaia… you?” He nods, grinning.

“That’s my school! Ha, now you already have one friend, huh?” You blink. You’ve just made a friend? You don’t recall ever doing that before. You shrug.

“Yeah.” He hands you the paper, still smiling.

“So I’ll see you soon, then.” He pauses, his eyes lighting up. “My name is John, by the way.”

“Dave.” You feel a burst of happiness when you say that. You’ve never introduced yourself as Dave before. He grins once more, standing up.

“Nice to meet you, Dave!” You nod to him, standing up as you continue on your way, using the directions John gave you as guide.

            When you open the door using your foot (because you’re kind of weighed down with a lot of bags) it bangs into the wall and you cautiously hope you didn’t already dent the wall.

            You set the bags down, breathing out a sigh.

“Did you bring food, Dave?” Dirk asks from the couch, the TV set up. You don’t reply, but dig through and grab a bunch of plastic cups and a thing of apple juice. You pour it into the cup and leave the groceries for your brothers, going to your room. You flop down on your bed, wishing you had wifi. You kind of wish you had anyone you could talk to from before you moved, but you don’t even have anyone you could miss. You’ve never had anyone but you’re brothers, you’ve never really made a friend. You’ve—no, wait. You have made a friend. John said he was your friend, right? There, that’s one. It’s already a new start. You make your way back into the living room but decide instead to see what they did while you were gone. The room next to yours is the bathroom, which is basically already set up. The next, which is across from yours, is Dirk’s room. He hasn’t even gotten started on it yet. The last is obviously Bro’s, and the only thing he has even touched is his turntables, which sit ready to go. The room at the end of the hallway has been turned into kind of an extra living room. It’s the only room with a fireplace so there’s one couch on the wall by it. You’re probably going to get another couch or two. In the front room Dirk’s moved from the couch. The TV is set up and playing some news channel. The black leather couch is in front of it, the blanket draped over the back as always. There’s a round chair in the corner of the room, game consoles randomly scattered about in front of it. The kitchen is empty with the exception of the paper plates and plastic cups you got and the food in the fridge. You notice that in the living room there’s an ironic painting hung up. The painting itself is completely normal, just an abstract brown and white theme, which is what makes it ironic. There’s a matching one on the wall opposite of it. You lean against the counter in the kitchen.

 _Dave Strider._ You try out the name on your tongue just like when you picked the name. You watch Bro threaten to strife Dirk from the front room and you let yourself smile when you’re sure neither of them is watching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter four will probably be up tomorrow because I already have so much written. ^.^


	4. Act Two, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *shakes my head longingly.* Why are all my chapters so SHORT?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this trains next stop is angstville!

You can’t recall the last time you were actually this nervous. Today is the first day that you are being forced to go to your new school and you’re practically trembling with fear. Bro knocks on your door and you don’t answer so he just comes in.

“Excuse me, I didn’t say come in.” You scoff at him, but you know he catches the slight shaking.

“What’s got you all in a twist?” He pretends to pet your hair lovingly until you swat him away.

“Nothing! It’s just—what if I don’t fit in here either? What if someone finds out, what if everyone finds out, what if I don’t pass?” Bro shakes his head.

“You will. You’ll be fine, Dave. I promise. Make some friends, kid, okay?” You glare at him half-heartedly and stand up, grabbing your backpack. You sigh on your way out and you sigh again when you walk in. Your grade, ninth grade, is supposed to meet in the cafeteria. You’re a little worried because you don’t know anyone and you walk in cautiously. You hesitantly lean against the wall for a moment, deciding what to do. You could always—

“Dave! Hey, Dave!” You turn your head to see John waving at you. You blink, waving back. He motions you over and you hesitantly sit down across from him. He gives you a wide grin.

“This is Dave,” he says to the people already sitting there. “Dave, this is Rose, Kanaya, Jade, Karkat, Sollux, Eridan, Tavros, Gamzee and Feferi. That’s… a lot of names? But you’ll learn everyone in our grades by the end of the year, probably. It’s not too hard, the school is small.” You’re not actually sure how to reply, because John is actually your first friend and while you feel grateful you aren’t sure if ‘thanks’ is the right response. So you just nod, smiling just a little because you don’t want them to think you’re rude, and glance around at the people sitting at the table. One of the girls gives you a soft giggle.

“Are you new here? I haven’t seen you before.” _I’m new everywhere. I’m new… completely. I’m completely different now and I don’t even know who I am._

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool! Where are you from?”

“Texas.”

“ _Texas?_ Wow. That’s far away! Why did you move?”

“Job transfer.”

“How did you meet John?” A girl with long black hair and green lips asks in a careful voice.

“I got completely lost on my first day in New York and I ran into him at a park….” She nods and they all slip into their own conversations. You pull out your phone and put in your earbuds. _Lion_ starts playing and you sit and pay attention to the words to distract yourself. When it ends a song you don’t remember begins playing. _Run To You_ by _Pentatonix._ The song is sad, slow, and frankly you don’t know why you own it. It’s just making you sad, but it’s got a beautiful undertone and the words are brilliant. You remember buying it to remix it, but never getting around to it.

            A bell snaps you out of your thoughts and as you stand up a girl with blonde hair smiles at you.

“Meet us here at lunch, okay?” You nod, surprised, and glance down at your sceduale, sucking in a breath.

“Well,” you whisper. “Let’s do this, Dave.”

            When the end of the day came you somehow ended up walking home with John… to your own apartment. You had just been walking most of the way, until John got a text from his dad saying that he would be home around seven instead of before John like usual. When John realized he forgot his key you offered to let him come over before you even realized what you were doing. When you pushed open the door to your apartment you were relieved that it was clean. There was boxes scattered everywhere still and it had that weird ‘new apartment’ smell. You lead him past the front room and kitchen and into the living room where Bro and Dirk are each sitting cross-legged on the couch, playing a video game. When they see you Dirk gives you a grin.

“Just seeing if the good old X-Box words,” he tells you in a fake reassuring voice. You roll your eyes.

“These are my brothers. Brothers, this is John.” Bro pauses the game and looks up, scanning John with his eyes before grinning.

“Aw, Dave made a friend!” He chirps, pretending to be an excited mother. “Finally, I was worried he would _never make one!_ Dave’s _first friend, Dirk!_ Isn’t this exciting?” You know what they’re getting at. As Dove you had several ‘friends’ as a kid, but as Dave you’ve never had a friend. They don’t know he kind of is your first friend, though.

“Oh yeah, Bro. You’re right!” Dirk joins in. You sigh loudly.

“They’re kidding,” you mutter to John. “It’s an… inside joke.” Bro breaks out laughing.

“You know Dirk, I think it’s more of an _outside joke._ ”

“Huh, Bro, you’re right.” He nods sagely, each of them keeping perfect poker faces.

“Shut up!” You scoff at them, huffing. They mean that the ‘Dave’ thing is an outside thing, but you think it’s more of an inside thing. You hate that ‘Dove’ is the outside joke. You want ‘Dove’ to die. You turn down the hall and head to your room. John looks puzzled as he follows.

“What did they mean—,”

“Ignore everything they say.” He just nods, moving on.

“So do your parents get home late, then?” You shake your head, flopping down on your bed.

“No, I never knew either of my parents. I don’t even remember them. My dad died in an accident a few days after I was born and my mom got a sickness right after Bro turned nineteen. They kind of raised me, and while I wish I could say they did a shitty job, I think I turned out pretty awesome.” John is silent, so you give him a smirk. “It’s cool man, they’re cooler than parents a lot of the time.” You hate to admit that you’re actually loving this. You’re here, with a friend. You’re with a _boy,_ because he thinks you’re a _boy._ You can say things like ‘man’ and no one will think it’s weird. It feels great being Dave because that’s who you’re _meant to be._

            You and John end up messing around on video game consoles until dinner when you order pizza. Around eight John returns home and you fall back on the couch. Bro walks by, ruffling your hair.

“He seems like an okay kid.”

“Yeah,” You agree. “He is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you find any mistakes please do leave them in the comments as well as your reviews and feedback! ~thanks~  
> If you have any suggestions or prompts you would like me to use, send them to my tumblr, pm me on fanfiction or wattpad, or put them in the comments


	5. Act Two, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically shit goes wrong between Dave and John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so chapter updates will be kind of slow because life is fucking hard and so is writing. I did have chapters pretwritten but i lost some of them so I do have to rewrite everything from this point out. when I have the time to update and feel up to it i will, and updates will never take longer than a week but things are kind of complicated right now so updates may take a while. Sorry for the glitch earlier, it's been fixed and here's the real chapter five. Enjoy all the same :)

            Even though school is boring as hell, you find yourself actually okay with going there. Around you, everyone at your lunch table is complaining that they’ve only been at school two weeks and they already miss summer. You yourself, though, are completely fine with school. It’s better than the uneventful summers that you’re used to and you’ve found yourself actually enjoying school. You can play whatever sports you want, pick what you want for your school topics, and nobody treats you like a girl. You think it’s nice at this school, so far you haven’t had a single problem with anyone. There’s not any bullying going on and you don’t have a problem with how anyone treats you. John and you hang out a lot and a lot of the days after school are spent at one of your apartments. John only lives a few blocks away from you and you think his dad is pretty cool, minus the obsession with baking. Everything is completely fine, and you find yourself actually enjoying everything that’s happening around you. It still sends a happy spark through you each time you introduce yourself as Dave, even if you manage to keep a poker face on the outside. During a class project you manage to trace back a relation to Rose, and later when your guardians meet you figure out that Rose is your second cousin. You like to tease her about it. You still live in a state of worry that someone will find out, that you’ll be in P.E and the school will decide to put you on a skins team and you won’t know what to do. If you do ever take off your hoodie, it will make the binder and the scars painfully obvious.

“Hey, Dave,” John pokes your arm and you push your focus back onto him. “Have you ever _seen_ a Nic Cage movie?” Ah, yes. The giant nerd has a large obsession with Nicolas Cage.

“Nope.” You reply flatly, turning to look at him. He gasps dramatically.

“What? Dave, you so have to!” He whines, holding out the ‘what’. “Are you doing anything this weekend?” You shake your head. You end up agreeing to attend a movie marathon and you are kind of positive that is not what you signed up for when you decided to go get groceries. You just wanted apple juice. You can’t say no to John though, that’s the thing. The adorable dork would have pouted—wait. Adorable? Where did that even come from? Since when did you care if you made someone pout like a four year old? Since when was John any different from anyone else? Since… always? John has always been different from everyone else, you decide firmly.

 

            After school you agree to go over to John’s house. You both stop inside one of the general stores and grab a pizza before actually going to his place, though. His dad won’t be back until six again so you have the place to yourself. You make yourselves comfortable on the couch and hook up a gaming system. After you’ve basically kicked John’s ass ten to nothing he stands up and switches off the system.

“We’re done with that.” He says, making your mouth twitch up into a smile on one end. You stand up and walk to his room, flopping down on his bed. John throws himself down next to you and you begin a debate about movies. John is still firmly standing on the idea that Nic Cage beats everything. You heavily decline this fact.

“Nic Cage is the cheesiest actor out there!” You tell John.

“No! He is the _best._ You just can’t accept that your movies are highly in superior and—,” John breaks off, staring at something. You blink, following his gaze. You absently mindedly had rolled up your sleeve, revealing the faded lines left behind. You suck in a breath, darting up.

“I have to go.” You tell him hurriedly in a strained voice. You yank the sleeve down and grab your bag, murmuring a “thanks for having me over,” and shutting the door behind you. Your breathing is ragged and panicked and you’re leaning heavily against the wall. You shove yourself off the wall and move back to your apartment, everything around you blurry. You push open your door, shutting it behind you. You walk past the front room and the kitchen, and past your brothers in the living room. You faintly hear one of them give you a half-hearted hello and you just breathe in and walk past them, not saying anything. You walk straight to the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. You dig through the box you keep in there until you pull out a shiny piece of metal. You stare at the faint lines on your arm distastefully and do something you haven’t done in such a long time—you dig the blade into your skin. You’re breathing heavily and gasping for breath through your panic.

 _John knows. John found out and now he’ll hate me. He’ll tell everyone and they’ll find out I’m not a boy and then he’ll hate me even more. They’ll all know and everyone will hate me and be disgusted._ Through the blurry haze you finally notice the dark shape moving next to you, grappling with your hand. _Rose will be ashamed to be related to me and I’ll be alone again and no one will let me do anything I want to do. I’m going to have to pretend to be a girl again._

“Dave!” Bro’s voice tears through your haze and you yank yourself from your thoughts. You’re breathing heavily and your arm is a bloody mess. The razor was ripped from your hand and has been flung across the bathroom. You stare up into Bro’s eyes, breathing heavily still. You notice your face is wet with moisture. When did you start crying? Striders don’t cry.

“John’s going to hate me,” you mutter, your voice too high from the panic.

“Why would John hate you?” Bro is still clutching your wrists.

“He saw the scars,” you sob through the gasps. “And now he’s gonna tell everyone and everyone’s going to hate me again.” You’re voice is a deadpan but it’s getting higher in pitch the longer you continue. Bro firmly gives you instructions to pause and catch your breath and you do. When you calm down you continue to breathe in and out heavily while Bro wraps up your arm. Dirk is still sitting cross-legged next to you. He took the blade and threw it away earlier.

“I want to stay home tomorrow,” you whisper, feeling pathetic and not at all like a Strider. Bro nods.

“Okay.” He says, ruffling your hair. You didn’t expect him to give in. You push yourself up and when you turn to go to your room Dirk wordlessly grabs your arm and leads you to the couch instead. You’re worried that he’s going to try to talk to you but instead he just sits by you, Bro joining you on your other side after a moment. Striders don’t cuddle. Striders don’t comfort. Striders don’t have family moments. Striders don’t smile.

 

            You guess that means you’ve all stopped being Striders for a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you find any mistakes please do leave them in the comments as well as your reviews and feedback!  
> ~thanks~  
> ~~  
> 


	6. Act Two, Part Four

 You stay home all the next day. Dirk goes to work and while you sit on the couch you can hear Bro doing _his_ job on the computer the living room. You let the TV play in front of you but you aren’t really watching. You aren’t wearing your binder because you forgot to take if off last night and Bro found out so you’re completely curled into the blankets. Your laptop is warm on your legs and you’re staring at that screen blankly as well. The fridge opens and you glance up at Bro for a minute before returning your gaze to your laptop. It’s only about two minutes since school got out, so you’re confused as to why your Pesterchum is flashing at you.

EB: Hey Dave? You aren’t at school today and I think I know why… um, you didn’t have to run off like that I guess, I understand that you probably didn’t want anyone figuring that out but it’s not like I hate you or you should avoid me. We’re still friends, obviously, and I’m not gonna tell anyone so… it’s all cool with me, just so you know.

            You don’t know what to say to that so you just shut your laptop. There is now a glass of apple juice sitting next to you, you notice. You look up but Bro is already back to the living room to make more puppet porn. You stand up and walk to your room, tugging on a binder and getting dressed. You walk to the front door and grab your jacket, turning around. You walk into the living room where Bro is still at the computer.

“Bro.” He glances up briefly. “I’m going to talk to John.” He flashes you a grin and nods, ruffling your hair. You swat his hand away, shrugging on your coat and walking out the front door.

           

You’re standing in front of John’s door. Your mind is screaming not to knock but your hand is already rapping shortly on his door. It opens a moment later and John is there, looking faintly tired but waking up when he sees you.

“Dave—,” he starts, but you interrupt him.

“It’s cool.” You say matter-of-factly. “I flipped my shit and that wasn’t cool, but you yourself are hella cool still.” John blinks.

“It’s cool? You’re okay, I mean? You did kind of flip and I’ve been really worried.” You shrug.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine. I just guess I was worried that… I was worried about things I didn’t need to be worried about because for a minute I guess I forgot that you’re different.”

“Different?”

“Yeah. Um, in a good way, man. Sappy shit and all aside I guess I mean it’s kind of obvious that you’re not like the rest of the fuckers in this world. I told you earlier that we moved here because of my bro’s job and I guess it’s true that we only were able _to_ move here because of his job but… that’s really not _why,_ ” he’s still watching you with full attention so you continue slowly. “The reason why is something that I figure that you and the rest of the goddamn world will figure out eventually so it’s probably better that I tell you now and get it over with—,”

“Dave,” John interrupts. “Just say it.” You take a deep breath in, deciding whether or not you really want to tell him.

“I’m trans,” you say slowly.

“I… alright,” John stared at you. You blink, wondering if he heard you.

“Alright? That’s it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” John replied, opening the door wider so that you would come in. “That’s it, I guess. One of my other friends is trans, too, so I understand it enough. So… yeah. That’s it. Alright. As for… the reason that you left so quickly earlier…” You do step in and he shuts the door behind you.

“That’s all there is to it.” You say firmly, and he seems to get that you don’t want to talk about it because he just shrugs and asks if you want to watch a movie. When you agree and he turns around you wonder to yourself _what you did to deserve John?_

            John decides on Con-Air, which is his favorite movie. He basically flips his shit when you tell him that you have not, in fact, seen it before. So he goes and makes popcorn and mixes things into it. You both sit on the couch and eat the whole bowl before the movie’s even halfway over. When the movie does end and you say your goodbyes (and you thank John, even though he says you have nothing to thank him for) you put your coat back on and give him a short wave before making the trek back to your apartment.

            When you return and Bro turns around to greet you, he doesn’t even have to ask how it went because you’re suppressing a grin.

“Hey, Bro.” He ruffles your hair again before turning back around and you punch him in reply.

“So it went well, then,” Bro said. You just nod, opening the fridge.

“Yeah. I didn’t actually explain anything but I told him about… everything. Kind of. I guess he’s cool with it. I’m not telling anyone else, though.”

“What about your other friends?” Bro asks, still typing away. “You do have other friends, right?”

“ _Yes,_ I have other friends.” Dave lied. It wasn’t a complete lie though, he did meet some nice kids who could be potential friends. “I met them through John and they all seem perfectly fine to me.” Dirk walked in, nodding a greeting.\

“How did you meet John?” He asks. You feel like you’re on a game show. It’s ridiculous.

“I met him when I went to go get food the day we moved here. I was pretty much hella lost and we talked for a while and he told me where to go to buy food and shit. We figured out that we went to the same school and on the first day he called me over and we talked. It was casual.”

“Casual,” Bro said, amused. “Since when do you say casual?”

“Since I became classier than you assholes!” You mutter, grabbing a cold slice of pizza and stuffing the end in your mouth, escaping to your room. You shut the door behind you and slide into the chair in front of your computer. You open it up, typing in your password and letting it load. Your Pesterchum is flashing with unread messages that you open. You check the first one and see that it’s someone you used to talk to back in Texas. You weren’t completely friends, but the kid didn’t hate you. You close the tab, checking the next message. You don’t even read it. The username, cyanideRepose, is Luke’s. You feel a lump in your throat as you close the tab and shut off your computer once more. You pull out an assignment to work on instead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you find any mistakes please do leave them in the comments as well as your reviews and feedback!  
> ~thanks~


	7. Act Two, Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave takes a walk and finds plans for the weekend, a door to the roof and a mysterious boy with gray eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I finally got this written with help from CiaoSenpai for giving me inspiration and prompts and from my wonderful beta, striders4life, who helped to prevent several hilarious typos that I managed to totally miss. So thank you so much to both of you! OH, and I feel so so bad but I can't find the username of the person who gave me the idea for John's piano recital, so if that was you please comment and I can credit you ^>^
> 
> OH!!!! and MOST IMPORTANTLY I MIGHT CHANGE THE STORY NAME. I had a reason for calling it Constellations that I might keep, but I may also change it to be called Momentarily.

            You sleep in the next morning, not even bothering with your hair and just shoving on some clothes and darting out the door, flipping off Bro when you hear him laughing smugly from the kitchen. You practically run over three kids on your way there, mumbling apologies to the parents but not slowing down. You get to school with a total of thirty seconds to spare, leaning against the locker and breathing heavily. Someone bowls into you and you swear loudly, trying not to fall over.

“Dave!” John’s voice calls perkily. _It’s too early for anyone to sound that awake._

“What?” You mumble, still out of breath.

“Are you free on Sunday?” You shrug, straightening up and pulling out your phone to check.

“Yeah. Why?” John reaches into his backpack, pulling out a slightly tattered piece of paper resembling a ticket.

“Because I have my piano recital that day and I want you to come.”

You accept the ticket, folding it up so that you could slide it into your pocket. “Yeah, alright. Why though?”

“Why what? Why do I want you to come? Because it’s important and I’ll probably die of anxiety if you don’t, and I just want you to be there.” John replies, shrugging.

“Yeah,” you agree, starting to walk to your first period class. “I’ll be there.”

 

You sit through school for the entire day, bored out of your mind. Minutes drag by and you occupy yourself by counting the clock. Your mind is in rhythm with the clock and you let your mind count to sixty twenty times before the bell finally rings and you stand up, your chair loudly screeching as you did so, and go back to your locker for your things. You sling your bag over your shoulder and put in your earbuds as you start walking home. You take the long way, appreciating the warm breeze that ruffles your hair. There’s a coffee shop on your way home and you can smell the warm drinks from inside, the whole area smelling like hazel and caramel. You appreciate this as well, walking past one of the busier roads and crossing it. There’s a long bridge that leads you home, arching high over a lake. Cars rush past as you walk along the sidewalk on the side of the bridge, watching them go by. You turn your head to look out at the water, staring down into it. Your first thought is to step further away from the bars preventing you from falling in. Your second reaction is to move _back_ to look down at the water again. Your third reaction is your mind deciding that it wouldn’t mind falling all the way down there, hitting the water and never coming back up. Staying down there forever.

  


But… you’re not going to.

 

You continue walking, a depressing aura over your thoughts now. Overall that in itself is confusing enough. You shouldn’t be _thinking_ like this anymore. You moved, you got your brothers support and you have _friends_ and everything here is great. You should be totally against falling off a bridge and dying or getting hit by a car, not debating slipping through the bars or in front of the cars that rush past. You could probably shrug it off too if you didn’t think the same thing every time you took this way home. If you’re being honest with yourself today is a pretty cold day, even if there’s a warm breeze here and there, and it’s muggy and cloudy and it’s probably going to rain. You’re pretty sure that you’re just coming this way for the bridge at this point.

You wouldn’t ever jump though. You wouldn’t do that. They’re just thoughts and they can’t hurt you.

So you just keep walking home in a somewhat subdued manner and enter the apartment building, taking the elevator up to the top. When you get out though, you don’t walk to your apartment. You really don’t feel like it. So you wander the top floor. You manage to find a door to the roof, pushing it open and walking out. There’s a light drizzle coming down and you let your hair fall in your face as it becomes wet. You stood and stare for a little while. It was so _tall,_ the apartment building. You could see so far, the sky was still gray and it was even muggier up here, but you didn’t mind.

You crept to the edge, sliding down onto your stomach so you could hesitantly peer over the edge. Your breath gets sucked out of you and you scramble back because _you’re on the fortieth floor and fuck this is really high up and there’s a street below you and if you sneezed you could actually die and you don’t want to die because you sneezed._

So of course you crawl back over to look down again because this is honestly kind of the fun of it, the fear. You swing one leg over the edge cautiously, gripping the edge. Your other leg joins it and your legs are both dangling off the edge. You stare down at the people below and they’re all so little below your feet. You swing your legs a little bit and pull out your earbuds, letting the sound of rain beating down fill your ears. The rain picks up and you see lightning a little ways off. You’re busy watching the city light up more and more as the sky darkens enough to make the world less visible until they light it up all around with signs and lights strewn around roofs and windows. You think you like the city more at night.

The rain is still beating down and there’s thunder, off in the distance, but you’re fine with it. Your clothes are all soaked, too, and you’re pretty high up to be sitting outside in a storm. You’re fine with that, too, though.

You just sit in the storm and watch at it gets progressively worse, wind picking up and blowing your clothes and hair around. You draw back from the edge, though, and sit towards the middle of the roof. You sit and wonder idly if tornados can hit in New York while the rain pelts down on you. You close your eyes and let the wind ruffle you while the storm continues to rage around you.

The door to the roof opens and you peel your eyes back open, turning around to see a kid with tousled black hair and a black hoodie staring at you. His eyes are gray and he’s got this incredulous look on his face, like he honestly can’t believe that there’s a kid out here in the rain and on the roof of a forty story building. He’s here too, though, so it can’t be that weird.

You don’t say anything as he leaves the awning and joins you in the rain, which instantly soaks him and makes his hair fall into his eyes and his sweater stick to his skin. He stares out over the city before sitting down by you.

“Hey.” He says, tucking his hands in his pockets. You admire how he says it so casually, like he always meets kids on the roof in storms.

Maybe he does.

“Sup?” You greet back, as if you, too, always meet people forty floors up on the roof in a storm.

“It’s raining pretty fucking hard,” he says, still playing off the casualness still.

“Yeah.” You reply, looking over at him. His hair had curled a little bit, the ends curling around his ears and the nape of his neck. He really did need a haircut.

Your phone sets off a song by Marianas Trench and you know that it’s one of your brothers calling. He seems to catch wind of the unspoken word that you’ve got to go, too, because he just glances over and gives you a slight nod as you stand up. You start to walk to the door again, complimenting how curly his hair is wet. He replies with a “fuck off,” eyes staying wherever it was that he was looking. You watch his small frame for a moment before turning and shutting the door, walking back to your apartment. You grab your keys from your pocket, unlocking your apartment door and waltzing in as if you weren’t three hours late and as if it wasn’t six at night and as if you weren’t freezing cold and soaked. Dirk looks up from the couch where he’s playing some dumb video game.

“Yo,” he greets you, looking back at the game. “You’re toast.” Your roll your eyes, but try to sneak back to your room unnoticed all the same.

Too late, Bro’s coming out of his room and you’ve been caught.

“Where the fuck were you?” He asks, seeming mildly pissed.

“I was out.” You shrug, pretty sure that you weren’t allowed on the roof and not wanting to lose your new hiding place. He rolls his eyes at you.

“You were out? Out where—why are you _soaked_? It’s six at night, Dave, and you’re soaked.” You give him a defiant look and he just huffs, telling you to go and change. You do, going and shrugging on dry clothes and going into the kitchen to grab something to eat. Your hair drips on the ground and you let it, grabbing a cup of hot chocolate and sticking it in the microwave. You go and sit on the couch by your older brother who just rolls his eyes, still playing his video game. “He babies you,” he mumbled, but you know he’s not really mad. “He wouldn’t have let me off the hook that easy.”

“It’s cause I’m his favorite.” You reply, leaning on your brother’s shoulder, ironically of course, and telling him that he sucked at video games as he died for the tenth time since you sat down. He punched your shoulder, rolling his eyes again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I put my usual ending, can i please just say thank you thank you thank you all with putting up with the long gaps in between updates?? You're all amazing and thank you.  
> ~~~~~~  
> Thank you for reading! If you find any mistakes please do leave them in the comments as well as your reviews and feedback!  
> ~thanks~


	8. Act Two, Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave gets sick from not drying his hair but sneaks back out onto the roof all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this chapter fairly soon after my last chapter because I have literally so many chapters written now and I am literally so excited to post them!! So here's chapter eight for you. Enjoy. 
> 
> >>sidenote: i honestly have no idea what's going on with A03 because its saying my last chapter never posted. I thought it did, though? So... if this doesnt make sense just comment and I'll figure it out.

You narrowly avoid getting grounded by having a cold. You woke up feeling like shit and regretting not drying your hair before going to bed. You try to go back to sleep but are prevented from doing so with a giant sneeze, followed by some hacking. You shove your face in your pillow and let yourself be occupied with feeling like shit. Your alarm clock for school goes off again and you practically punch it. Bro is yelling at you to get up and you would punch him too, if that didn’t mean getting up. Eventually he opens your door and throws something at you and you try to tell him to fuck off, but end up just emitting a raspy noise. He throws something else at you and you sit up and glare at him. You must look pretty sick, too, because he rolls his eyes and disappears. He returns a minute or two later with a cup of water and an aspirin, handing them to you. You manage to practically choke on the water when you swallow it at the same time that you cough, but at this point it’s also pretty obvious that you don’t have to go to school so you just curl back up in bed and feel like dying.

Dirk seems to be getting a kick out of it, though, because he comes in and jumps on your bed a few minutes later, jostling you. You huff, kicking him. You lift your face up again to look at him, scowling at his smirk.

“Is someone sick?” He teases you. “And why is that? Is it because you were out in the rain yesterday? Is it because you didn’t come home right away like Davey was supposed to?” You kick him again, huffing. “No but seriously,” he says. “Where were you?” You roll your eyes at him, sitting up when you realized that he wouldn’t leave you alone.

“I was out.” You rasp, glaring at him.

“But where?” He pries. “Were you with a… guy? Do you like guys? I’m assuming you like guys. Were you with a guy?”

“No, I was just walking home from school.” You argue, coughing. You pause, thinking about the bridge again. You think about your wanting to just fall. You think about the cars and the roof and how sometimes you just want to jump. Sometimes you just want to fall, which didn’t make any sense and it scared you.

“Dirk,” you mumble, your face turning serious. “Sometimes when I walk home I take the long way.” He looks confused so you keep talking. “I take the long way because there’s this bridge and it’s tall and there’s this big river under it and it goes so high up and it’s really cool. But-but sometimes when I walk across it I think- I think maybe I wouldn’t mind if I tripped walking on that bridge and fell off. Sometimes I think maybe I wouldn’t mind not looking when I cross a road and getting hit and-and not being okay. And I don’t want to think like that because it’s really fucking creepy and I think that maybe sometimes I want to listen but I don’t.” Dirk is staring at you with a blank look on his face.

“You didn’t like, start hurting yourself again did you?” He asks, sitting up. You shake your head slowly, watching him closely. He watches you doubtfully.

“I don’t know, maybe you should talk to Bro about this—,”

“No,” You hiss, glaring at him again. “You can’t tell Bro.”

“Dave,” Dirk interrupted you. “You really do have to tell Bro. He’s like, an adult. And I can’t stop that, and maybe you need a therapist or some shit and I don’t want you to get hurt by keeping this just between us. Bro has to know.” You frowned at him, sighing heavily.

“I’m already fucked up,” you mumble softly. “And I don’t want him knowing.” Dirk frowned.

“You’re not fucked up.”

“No, okay, I know I am.” You snap and you both seem to remember that you’re not really known for heart-to-hearts.

“You’re just figuring things out,” Dirk told you calmly, tousling your hair. “You can do it, kid.” You huff again, burying your face in your mound of pillows.

“Yeah,” you mumble all the same. “Okay.” He gives your shoulder one of his awkward pats and leaves your room again. You silently wish that Bro wouldn’t find out, but you knew that Dirk would tell him.

You focus on being sick for now, though, and dabble in the arts of feeling sorry for yourself. You feel achingly hot, but the minute you shove the covers off you’re freezing. You decide you’d rather be hot, though, and end up dragging the blankets back over you.

You spend the next several hours on your laptop, trying not to sneeze on it. Bro comes in several times before he leaves for work and Dirk goes off some place to do whatever it was that Dirk did in his free time. So you were home alone, buried in your own woes and tissues.

You carted your quilt into the living room, settling down in front of the TV. There’s not really anything on, but you settle for some show that you used to be really into. You consider getting something to eat, but you really don’t want to stand up and you’re not hungry so you just stay where you are. You manage to fall asleep after a little while and wake up to your phone ringing from the coffee table. Of course you don’t answer it, though, because you’re really not in the mood for actually talking to human beings at the moment.

You let voicemail deal with it and try to go back to sleep. This is New York, though, and that means lots of noise, which means no sleep for poor little you.

You settle now for standing up and grabbing your coat. As if New York wasn’t already cold enough, you were sick currently and freezing. But you’re home alone and you’re not going to pass that up.

So you shrug on the coat, grab your keys and set out into the hall, climbing a flight of steps and shove open the door to the roof. It’s not raining anymore, that stopped last night around twelve, but the roof is still wet and it’s windy. The wind blows your hair in your face and you stick your hands in your pockets.

You walk to the edge and sit down again, swinging your legs back and forth. You make a mental note that you left your phone inside. You really don’t care. You’ll be home alone until four, and when you last checked it was one. You’ve got a while.

You make sure to keep hold of the edge, just in case. You partake in watching the people below you again. They’re so small down there, you can’t even make out their faces. A little girl is running after a dog, she’s got a dress on and the wind is blowing it as she runs. There’s a couple on a bench across the street and they’re sharing coffee, laughing about something, you think. There’s a kid in a black jacket walking into your apartment building.

You idly wonder if this is illegal and decide that you don’t care. If anything it’s probably ironic to break the law somehow. Mostly it’s ironic that you don’t care if you break the law, even though you aren’t sure if this is technically illegal.

You let your gaze travel across all the streets that you can see. New York seems to go on forever. You can see the park where you met John from here, you can see your school, you can see the store. You can see the bridge, you can even make out the coffee shop because of it’s the only store to have a bright green door. It’s like you can see your whole world up here.

You hear a door bang open behind you again. You ignore it, but tear your gaze away from the city anyways.

“Hey, fuckass, is this going to be a normal thing for you? Because I come up here to be alone. And this is most definitely not alone.” It’s the kid from last night again.

“You seem friendly.” You comment. You shift so that your legs are on solid ground again and not dangling forty floors away from solid ground.

“And you seem stupid. Is sitting like that really so smart?” He asks, quirking an eyebrow up. You find yourself studying his gray eyes.

“Mmm… no. But that’s kind of the point, you know?” You reply, turning back around. He’s wearing a black jacket.

“No. I don’t know, because I’m not stupid.”

“Well the point is to let your feet hang off because you could fall. That’s the fun of it, it’s dangerous,” you shrug, going back to studying the people. “You come up on the roof to be alone?” The kid shrugs, sitting a little ways back.

“Yeah. Because no one’s ever come on the roof before but me so it works, usually. Now you’re here though,” he made a face. “So fuck off, please.” You couldn’t help but smirk slightly.

“I think I’m good here.” You watch him roll his eyes.

“Fine. If this is going to be a regular thing, then my name is Karkat.”

“Karkat?  Is that Russian? That’s not a name you hear a lot. My name’s Dave, though.” You reply, turning around to look at him.

“Oh, I heard about you. From John, we go to school together. I was gone the first few weeks so I’ll start in a couple of days on Monday.” He replies, seeming content with making idle chatter with you.

 You guess you’re fine with talking to him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To help let this story update faster PLEASE send prompts, ideas, or leave comments and subscribe! I update my more popular stories first!
> 
> Like what you see? Leave a comment or kudos!


	9. Act Three, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it got sad again.  
> This wonderful idea came from my amazing beta, so a special thanks to striders4life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to stiders4life for this chapter idea and for beta'ing.  
> Sorry about the long update wait, by the way! I've been busy with family matters, but I'll be back to updating normally soon.

You’d gone back inside after an hour or two of talking to Karkat. He’d been nice enough, but he’d had an interesting temper and tended to rant. You were fine with sharing the roof with him, though. He was an interesting kid, but not bad.

You were going to John’s around four, leaving you with several hours to kill before then. Bro would be at work for a couple of hours, leaving you home alone with Dirk as well. He’d set out to pester you the whole time, mocking you about your lingering illness, still trying to get you to tell him where’d you’d been that night. You had persisted just as well, not telling him. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him to know, you could honestly care less. You just enjoyed watching him get all irritated.

“Dave _tell me._ ” He practically pleads, tackling you to the floor and keeping you pinned down.

“Fuck off, this is bullying.” You shoot back, squirming to try to get away.

“You’re just so _small_. _”_ He pretends to coo, patting your cheek. You punch him as hard as you can and he rolls off of you, throwing an empty water bottle at you before giving up.

“I was on the roof.” You tell him, sitting up. He looks over at you, raising an eyebrow. “I just wanted to see if I could actually go up. It was pretty fucking cool, though, so I decided to hang out up there for a bit. It was already raining and I was already wet and so I just decided to chill on the roof for a bit. I even met someone. That’s all.”

“You met someone?”                                                                                           

“Yeah. Just this kid—I didn’t even catch his name. He doesn’t wear color, either. Needs a haircut, too, but he was pretty chill.” You watch your brother roll his eyes.

“Well, while you were off doing nothing with your life, I was actually doing something important.” He slides you his laptop and you see a website pulled up. “I applied for a college. Figured, hey, if I get in that’s great and if I don’t that’s fine, too. I never even considered going to college but… this one seems pretty damn close to perfect.” You scroll through the website and admit to yourself that it looks like something that he would definitely apply to. It’s got programs for almost everything he’s interested in.

“College? This is… this is back in Texas.” You say, looking up at him. “Would you be moving away then?”

“Well, yeah. Probably.” You crinkle your eyebrows, staring at him. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. We both knew that I wasn’t going to live with you and Bro forever, neither are you. Besides, I might not even get in.” He voice softens slightly. “I would still come back to visit, obviously. All the time.” You shrug in response.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Whatever.” You shrug again, trying not to care. He studies you for a minute before getting up and ruffling your hair, going to his room. You make up your mind on what you’re going to do, grabbing your keys and phone and setting off to check out the coffee shop on your way home from school. You remember being able to see the door from where you sat on top of the roof. It takes you about fifteen minutes to get there and you can see the bright green door and the lights that adorn the windows from all the way down the street. The scent of hazel greets your nose as you push open the door and you scan the menu. You settle for a normal coffee with mint in it, giving the girl behind the register a five. You think you remember her, from some place. You don’t have a clue where, though, so you don’t say anything. She hands you the mug and you go and find a seat, pulling out your phone and messaging some of the people that you used to live by. John shoots you a text about that night and you both make plans for that night. You find yourself growing fond of the small coffee shop, making plans to go back. You place your mug on the counter and get up, walking home.

This is the point where you feel something in the pit of your stomach. _Something isn’t right, something’s wrong, something’s going to happen, something something something._

The something is kids from your school, a whole bunch of them in groups by one of the restaurants, all there and laughing loudly outside. Your first option is to turn around and walk away. You figure you can’t do that because there’s a girl and she’s just made eye contact with you. Her hair is black and she’s got metal imbedded in her lips and her eyebrows and her ears. So you try and slink by them.

The result is you getting shoved against a wall in a rather violent way and the laughter to pause for a moment.

It bubbles up again after a minute, though, and this time it’s at you. So there you are and there’s a fierce pain shooting through your stomach and a burly kid is grabbing your shoulder. Someone sneers at you and the kid grabbing your shoulder seems to have realized that there’s not just a _shirt_ here but something _under_ the shirt, because suddenly he grins slightly, yanking back the shirt so that your shoulder’s exposed and oh hey look there’s a binder there too and now they’re all sneering names at you. _Tranny and femboy and fag and there’s so many more._ Your breathing is loud and hard and you feel more pain bubble all around you and it’s horrible. You’re scared and you’re upset and you want to go now. You want this to end, you want to run and hide like the wimp you are. They’re all calling you she and you just want to _hide._

You tear yourself from their grip, stumbling partially as you take off running, as you take off running to go home.

The only way home is across that long, silver bridge. You make it about halfway before you skid to a halt. You feel blood dripping down your face, mingling with the tears that you let streak down your face.

You don’t like where your thoughts are going. They’re dark and cold, they’re harsh and uninviting.

You hold your phone in slightly trembling hands and type in your passcode. 4-6-6-3.

Your phone is open to the conversation with John still and you send him a text with fingers trembling even harder now.

>Message to: John< John

>Message to: John< John

>Message to: John< John seriously come on answer

>Message to: John< its kind of important

>Message to: John< John please

You give up, letting your phone drop to the ground next to you, turning back to the crossroads presented to you currently.

The view is music to your ears. On the one hand, you’ve got that glistening river going miles and miles and miles down. On the other, you have cars roaring past. You first step towards the silver bars, one hand curling around one of them. You hear about people surviving the falls all the time, though. So you stumble in the other direction towards the cars. There’s a never ending stream of them. You pause for a minute to wipe away the tears, sucking in a breath before darting out into the stream.

 

For one awful moment you think they’re going to stop in time.

 

And then you feel the pain burst through you like electricity rippling through your body.

You’re on the ground then and the world seems to stop with the traffic as everything stops and there’s a scream and there’s someone running towards you.

Their hand cups under your nose as you weakly breathe and they pull you up so that you’re in their lap. They’re trying to see if you’re still alive. You smile weakly as you feel yourself growing less and less alive, though, and your world is tinted black around the edges.

You shut your eyes.

Their hoodie is soft.

It smells like hazel.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To help let this story update faster PLEASE send prompts, ideas, or leave comments and subscribe! I update my more popular stories first!
> 
> Like what you see? Leave a comment or kudos!


	10. Act Three, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter as told from the view of Karkat Vantas because not only am I trash but I am a gigantic troll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I apologize again for the super long wait, life and everything. But everything's clearing up for the most part and I should be back to regular updates soon! Also, thank you all for the constant support! Enjoy the chapter, and, as always, leave a review if you enjoy! ((ALSO READ THE END NOTE PLEASE AND THANK YOU))

 

_\----Your name is Karkat Vantas. You work at East Village Café and you live in New York City. You’ve lived in New York your whole life. You know it like the back of your hand, you can name every street, every building. You like to go up on the roof. You like to be alone. Too bad for you some douche you’d never seen before found your hiding place and invaded it. Too bad for you he was a nice guy. Too bad for you, you were okay with him being up there with you._

_Too bad for you he’s dying in your arms.-------------_

Some days you hate working at the café. Some days you absolutely love it. You work there to make some money, for the most part. For the other part you work there because your two best friends work there, too. Terezi’s dad owns the café, named after the little town in Iowa that she used to live in. Sollux has a burning passion for coffee. You just like how it smells.

You don’t harbor any particular fondness for people, though, so you just make the coffee, lingering in the back of the shop and making whatever Terezi and Sollux yell at you to make. When it’s empty you all entertain yourselves by making whatever nabs your interest that particular day. Hazel and mint and maybe some raspberry and whipped cream? You think you put that one on the menu, actually. Your concoction of lime, red velvet and cinnamon, however, didn’t make the cut. You spend ten to fifteen hours at the café a week and see the same faces each day. Sollux is always coming up with wild plans to attract customers— _if we paint the door green and string lights up people will notice it no matter what time of day it is—_ and while you admit that that worked, you found the idea stupid and still have green paint staining one of your favorite sweaters.

You’ve learned the names of a lot of the people who come in there every day—and let’s face it, most of your customers are just the people who stop in once a day.

The fact that you know most of the people in New York is probably the reason that you noticed the kid come in. What was his name? It was short, overused.

He had stayed near the door for a minute or two, calmly leaning against the wall. Outside you hear the obnoxious yells and laughter of the group of assholes who hung outside of the restaurant down the street. God, you just wanted to punch them some days. He eventually orders a coffee and sits down someplace towards the back. He seems like a fairly calm person, to you. Even on the roof, with his legs hanging thirty story up from any kind of solid ground he seemed just as calm as he does here.

Your shift is over at this point so you grab your keys and go to leave, stopped by Terezi grabbing your arm and dragging you upstairs, despite Sollux’s loud protests at being left to run the shop alone. You follow her up the stairs and to her room. She disappears under her bed and drags out a small box. She pulls two bracelets from the box, shoving one in your hand with a smirk. It’s just tightly woven pieces of red, blue and yellow threads, but you find yourself admiring the way it’s been made so that all the colors twist together and it looks well-made.

“These are friendship bracelets,” Terezi declares. “I have already given Sollux his. This one is for you. You have to wear it all the time, no matter what, and never take it off. Because we are obviously your best friends, right?” You roll your eyes, sliding the bracelet on your wrist anyways.

“Why are you making us do this, exactly?” You ask as she ties it tightly.

“Because we’re _best friends,_ stupid. So you _have_ to wear it. And so does Sollux.”

“Sollux isn’t wearing any bracelets.” You point out, pushing yours down to your wrist so that it’s not cutting off your circulation.

“Yes he is. He put it around his ankle because apparently guys don’t wear bracelets. You can do that too.” Terezi replies, shoving the box under her bed.

“No I can’t,” you roll your eyes again, standing up. “It’s kind of tied around my wrist in a permanent fucking knot.” She shoves you out of her room and you both go back down. She goes back to taking orders and you go and gather your things. You notice that the boy from the roof is gone now.

You mess with the string on the bracelet as you push the door open, walking out and turning to walk back to your apartment building. The group of kids is in a tight circle, laughing wildly at something. At someone, judging by the things that they’re snickering. You sneer at them as you pass and one of them breaks into hyena laughter as you keep walking.

The bridge is just as daunting as always. You’re honestly not sure why you chose the _roof_ of all places for a hiding place, when you despise heights. The bridge is wide and arching, glinting at you when the light hits it just right, deviously as if it’s winking at you evilly. Your eyes aren’t trained on the water below, though, because they’re trained on the commotion that’s going on ahead of you. The cars have all stopped in one lane and there’s people outside of their cars. Someone’s been hit.

You keep walking by, trying not to look as you walk by and swallowing heavily.

You stop, then, because those red Converse are sickeningly familiar and when your head turned to look your feet came to a skidding halt.

It’s him. He’s on the ground and you can tell from here that he’s barely breathing. He’s got blood on his face, tears mingling in. You shove past someone without thinking, running over to him and grabbing his head and cupping your hand under his nose.

“Be alive, be alive, be alive.” You beg, feeling the faint air on your hand and wiping away some of the blood from his face and pulling him into your lap. He stares at you and his face contorts into some sort of drunken grin as his eyes close. You’re breathing heavily and the woman from before who screamed is still wide-eyed.

Someone’s called 911, because there’s sirens and people are clearing a path. Someone tries to tell you to hand him over but you just shake your head, clinging to him.

You don’t _know_ him, you don’t know his _name,_ you don’t know where his family is or if he _has_ a family.

But you met him on the roof and he’s not like everybody else.

He’s different.

You don’t want him to die.

Your name is Karkat Vantas. You work at East Village Café and you live in New York City. You’ve lived in New York your whole life. You know it like the back of your hand, you can name every street, every building. You like to go up on the roof. You like to be alone. Too bad for you some douche you’d never seen before found your hiding place and invaded it. Too bad for you he was a nice guy. Too bad for you, you were okay with him being up there with you.

Too bad for you he’s dying in your arms.

“C’mon kid, you have to let him go so we can get him to the hospital.” One of the paramedics tells you gently. You release him slowly, letting them take him.

“Are you family? A friend? Do you know him?” You nod slowly.

“Family.” You whisper, not sure why. Actually, it’s because they’ll let you go to the hospital with him if he’s family. You don’t want him to be there alone.

Someone’s talking to the lady who hit him and you can hear her voice, too sharp and too high for her to be relaxed about any of this, telling him in a fast tone that he jumped in front of the car.

You close your eyes tightly for a moment, feeling sick.

“You coming with us?”

You nod, climbing up and sitting with him, staring at the kid from the roof with a pained look. _Dave,_ you recall. _His name is Dave._

Dave looks mostly dead there, barely breathing and thin. They work on him and you clutch the seat tightly, eyes squeezed shut again.

They take him someplace when you get to the hospital and you’re sent to the waiting room. You sit in one of the chairs, drawing your knees to your chest and sitting in silence. There’s no one else there except for the receptionist. She looks up eventually.

“Karkat,” she greets you. “You don’t have an appointment today, do you? Just Wednesdays, I thought.”

You shake your head. “A friend.” You whisper. She gives you a sympathetic look, giving you the silence you want and going back to typing.

They contacted his real family, though, because at some point the door flies open and a tousled looking guy in a white t-shirt and jeans is standing there.

“My brother,” he says in a rushed voice. “He’s here. Dave Strider.” She tells him that they’re working on him right now, asking if Dave’s parents are available.

“No, he doesn’t have parents. Our older brother, he’s Dave’s legal guardian. He was at a work conference, he’ll be here in fifteen minutes.” The guys voice is tight with what sounds like panic. “What _happened_ to him? Why is he in the hospital?” The receptionist informs him that she doesn’t know any details and you can see him growing more anxious. He mills around the waiting room until he notices you staring at him and you have a silent staring contest.

“You’re here for Dave,” he says. You nod, not removing your chin from your knees. “Did you come here with him? Do you know what happened to him?” You nod again.

“He… I found him… he- he got hit, someone said that he did it on purpose but I- I don’t think he would- I mean…”

“You met him on the roof,” he says, his voice small. The smallness doesn’t seem to fit him.

“I’m Karkat,” you reply in an equally small voice. He introduces himself as Dirk.

“You’re his brother?” You ask, your eyes on the ground.

“Yeah,” Dirk mumbled. “But I’m doing kind of a shitty job.” You glance over at him as someone comes in the room and tells you that family can go and see him. Dirk’s up on his feet in a moment, but pauses and looks at you, inclining his head towards the door slightly. You blink, standing up and following him past the door and through the halls. They’re long and winding, and the nurse tells you to go to the east ward, giving you the room number. You can hear Dirk mumbling under his breath about how there must be thousands of rooms as you set off in the right direction. You wind through the halls, going to the critical care unit and towards the three hundreds, pausing outside the door and letting Dave’s brother go in first to see Dave.

His hair is just as tousled as always and his breathing is soft. His sunglasses are folded up on the table and his eyelids are a soft white, eyelashes long.

He looks so pale.


	11. Act Three, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to the POV of Mr.Strider, who's not entirely sure what to say about any of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got the next chapter almost finished, so that'll be up within a few hours. That'll be three chapters within 24 hours, so I hope that makes up for my long absences!

_\--Your name is Dove Strider and—no, your name is **Dave Strider** and everything hurts.—_

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to shift your hand. It hurts to try to listen to the voices, much less the beeping. It hurts to even think about prying your eyes open. So you’re just lying there, thinking as you lie in the bed. You’re not dead, that’s one thing you realize right away. That’s a horrible thing to realize, because remembering _why_ you tried to make yourself die hurts so much more. Everything hurts and aches and the memory makes you jolt up quickly and suck in a breath, tears flooding your face at the pain and the reminder that you’re alive. Everything is so bright and cold and painful. There’s a hand on your shoulder and your face is buried in their chest before you even know what you’re doing. The hand runs through your hair. It’s Dirk, you know because he always smells like mint and your house, mixed together.

“Dirk,” you choke out, and he shushes you. You shake your head, pulling your face away to look at him, struggling to breathe. “Dirk,” you repeat, struggling to make your voice sound right, sobbing. “I don’t want to _do_ this anymore.”

“Don’t say that.” A deep voice says. Your head swivels over to where Bro is leaning against the wall. Somewhere in the back of your head you take note of the kid from the roof there, silently in a chair, knees pulled to his chest.

“I don’t,” you say, begging, pleading for them to understand. “I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.”

“Dave—,”

“Hey, bud, calm down okay?” Dirk cuts off Bro, running his fingers through your hair again. “Calm down and we’ll talk. Just take some deep breaths, okay? Just breathe, little bro.”

So you focus on taking deep gulping breaths for a few minutes until you’re shivering slightly but breathing fine and thinking a little more clearly. You fall quiet, accepting your shades from Dirk and sliding them on.

You turn to Dirk again after a moment. “I’m never going to school again,” you say simply. You watch one of his eyebrows raise.

“So it’s because of school, then?”

You shake your head. “ _No._ But now everyone at school’s going to _know._ ”

“Know? Know what— _Oh._ How could they possibly know that, Dave?” He asks, and you tense up slightly, which Dirk seems to see because he ruffles your hair and tells you that you don’t have to talk about it. Instead, he sits down on the bed next to you, making himself comfortable. “Next up on the agenda—okay, hospital food? Everyone’s always like, ew, gross, hospital food but. I assumed that was just like, some strange stereotype. _Nope,_ hospital food is hella bad.”’

“Is it?

“It is,” Bro chimes in, and oh look you’re all successfully avoiding the subject at hand and the kid sitting in the chair right next to you. What is he even _doing_ here, anyways? “It’s worse than the food from your first elementary school. You remember that food right? When you were in third grade you tried to start a protest when they taught you about that kind of shit, like Martin Luther King Jr. and shit. You didn’t make it very far, but the point is the food is bad.”

You’re considerably calmed down, and at this point you make eye contact with the kid, Karkat, unintentionally. You don’t even know what he’s doing there.

But your brothers seem to sense that you’ve made that awkward eye contact, because Dirk stands up.

“I’m getting coffee. Just rest, okay?” You watch him leave, face twisting slightly when the door shuts behind him.

“Is he really leaving?” You ask. Bro seems confused by the question, so you rephrase it. “Is he really going to go to college in Texas? He’s just gonna leave?” Bro watches you quietly for a minute.

“Yeah, Dave, probably. He graduated, little man, that means he’s gotta go off and do his own things with his life. That’s how it works. It’s not like he won’t ever visit.” You just shrug and Bro glances at the door. “I’m gonna go with him, though. To get coffee, I mean. Be back in a few.”

And he disappears, too.

So now it’s just you and Karkat. He’s watching you quietly and you aren’t sure what to say to him. So you just say the first thing you think of.

“What..?”

“You jumped in front of a goddamn car,” Karkat snapped, lifting his head up. You squint at him from behind your shades.

“How would _you_ know?”

“Because I’m the one who got your miserable ass here!”

“I hope you don’t expect me to thank you,” you snap back, voice tightening. “I didn’t jump in front of that car on accident!”

“Why the hell would you do that? Why the actual fucking hell would you do that? What is the _point_ in doing that?”

“Because I don’t want to do this anymore!” You snap again. “I hate it! I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it!” You repeat the mantra in a shaky voice that raises and he’s glaring at you fiercely now.

“That doesn’t mean you go and off yourself, asshole! God, why would you _do_ that? You’ve got people who care for you, you sniveling prick! How can you not fucking see that? Is your pedestal fun, sitting up there and thinking that you don’t have a single goddamn reason to stay on this miserable planet when you’ve got people who obviously _care_ about you? Is that it? Because let me tell you something, _sir_ , you do. So _tell_ me, seriously, I’m so fucking _intrigued_ as to why the hell you would jump in front of a car you _miserable asshole._ ”

That is indeed the question, now isn’t it? You’re wondering that right now yourself, you’re wondering indeed what’s so awful about any of this. You know a lot of people would kill to be in the situation you’re in, with two accepting brothers who obviously care about you and accept you and let you be the person that you so terribly want to be. You don’t have a _reason_ to be sad… so why are you?”

“I don’t know.” You tell him flatly, which seems to make him explode with more insults like ‘sniveling prick’ so you cut him off quickly and continue. “I don’t know, I don’t have a reason, if anything I should probably be a pretty happy person so I don’t _know_ why I’m not. There’s just something wrong with me and I don’t know what. I don’t know _why_ I want to go fall off a bridge instead of walking the rest of the way home to people who care about me and a nice place to live and a good life and everything like that. I don’t _know_ why I’m always _so fucking sad all the time._ ”

He doesn’t seem to know what to say to this either, so you both continue to sit in somewhat awkward silence for a moment before the door swings back open and your brothers show up again. Dirk sets something down on the table next to you, probably not coffee, but you don’t bother looking over to see what it is. You take a breath and look down at your arm and see an IV in it for the first time. The soft beeps are still there and although you’re anything but happy to still be able to hear that beeping in your ears, but for now you think you’re willing to at least try and find a moment when you will be happy with it.

Karkat stands up and looks at you, giving you a long look so that you know that the conversation isn’t over. You notice for what isn’t the first time how pale and thin he is, how dark the bags under his eyes are. “I go to your school,” he tells you in a tired voice. “Just thought I would point that out. I was gone for the first part of the semester, but I hang out with John and the rest of those losers. I don’t know when to expect you at school again, but I’ll tell you two things and you damn well better listen to them. You better show back up at school sometime and you better show up at John’s piano recital. So I’ll see you there, then.”

You watch the door swing shut behind him and sink further down in the bed. Now that he’s gone you’re really going to get grilled and you know it.

“Dave.” No, you think for now you’ll just pretend not to hear them.

“Dave.” Is that a window to your left? Woah, what the _fuck_ it is indeed a window! Would you look at the fine work they put into that brick wall that you see? And seriously, wow, look at the wing-work on that bird flying by right now!

“Dave Elizabeth Strider.”

“My middle name isn’t—,” Dammit, you’re fraternizing with the enemy. You begrudgingly look over at them and see that they’re serious now and you want to shrink down into the bed and into the ground and straight down into the Earth. “I’m sorry,” you whisper in a small voice. You’re not sorry for trying, but you’re sorry for hurting them like that.

Dirk leans against the wall and lets Bro take over, since he’s probably the one who knows what he’s talking about.

“You can’t do that again,” he starts, then pauses. “Seriously. Don’t you dare even try. I just want to ask you one question, and we’ll leave you alone for now about it. But you have to answer me and I want you to answer it with the truth, don’t give me bullshit about this, alright? I just want to know _why,_ Dave.”

“I don’t know,” you practically whimper because _damn you sound like a girl right now and you think you might cry in a second_ but for now you just look him in the eye and he sighs really heavily and nods.

“Well… this is going to end, alright? This depression thing. We’ll figure this out, alright? We’ll figure this all out somehow.”

You don’t know exactly how he expects you to do that, but you assume that he means therapy and other forms of help, as well as people constantly watching you like a hawk. If that’s what it takes, though, then maybe you’re okay with that until you’re okay with living.

It's not the most appealing idea by far, but you don't think you get a say in it either way.


	12. Act Three, Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave might be an idiot but he can catch on to some of the things that perhaps some people don't always catch on to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll update again tomorrow because it's a teacher work day and I've already got chapter 13 written. I'll be posting them un-beta'd because my beta hasn't been replying for some reason, but I assume they're just gone atm and will probably still return. Until then, enjoy chapter 12~

It’s incredibly boring in a hospital and you absolutely hate it. You spend two days with people constantly coming and going and your brothers there on and off. On the third day John bangs in through the door with a look on his face and you just know that you’re in for it. No way is he going to yell at you but _oh boy does he look guilty._ He just stares at you for a few minutes, and you’re pretty sure that you’re just staring right back at him. His eyes stick to the IV in your arm and your eyes stick to his messy hair, which is even more messy and uncontrollable than usual.

“Sup?” You try for a casual conversation starter, which doesn’t work because suddenly he’s glaring at you and you’re suddenly realizing that John has a _really angry glare._

“Sup?” He tells you, his voice sounding high and frazzled. “Sup? _Sup?_ Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? Dave of everything to start with in this situation, that is by far the _worst._ ”

“This situation?” You ask, but you both know that you know very well what ‘this situation’ is.

“Yes! You told me that you would be there at four and instead you _almost got yourself killed._ ” He’s avoiding saying that you tried to kill yourself, and though you know he knows—either from people at school or from Karkat, or actually one of your brothers too probably— but you don’t really care all too much if you’re being honest. John takes a deep breath in and you can see him thinking as he starts to talk again. “I’m not going to ask why or anything. But uh… that was a kind of stupid thing to do and… I don’t want you to do it again.”

You watch him, still, because you aren’t really sure what to say to that. So you change the subject because it’s awkward and quiet and you really want for John to stop looking so _sad._

“Noted,” you say, just to let him know that you heard what he’d just said. “But uh…tell me about life, then, John Egbert. I’m pretty curious to the what’s-what of the outside world.” He blinks at you at first like he can’t believe you actually just changed the subject like that, but you know that he’s not going to bring it back up so he just goes along with it with a heavy sigh because John Egbert is just that kind of good person.

“Um… Kennedy Wright got voted class president,” this makes you groan. “And we have  twenty-three page essay due tomorrow in English, which sucks. I haven’t started it yet,” and that makes you raise an eyebrow because that’s not like John at all. “And apparently Lydia Bettis and Macy Freed are both lesbians and are dating now, and they won’t stop making out in the hallways. That’s uh… that’s okay, though. I mean uh, the lesbian thing not the kissing thing. The kissing is kind of gross. Like….really gross. There’s a lot of tongue going on there.” Your lips twitch into a smirk and you think that was a completely John thing to say. “Anyways… it’s Wednesday. It’s the fifth. It’s forty nine degrees out and it rained this morning. Mr. Overman’s been gone all week because his wife fell off the roof of their house and broke her leg trying to string up lights and everything smells like autumn.”

You raise an eyebrow at that and you’re pretty amused by the fact that he just said that.

“Tell me, John, how does something smell like autumn?”

“It just does,” he replied, his face dusting a light red. “It smells all crisp and cool and it just smells like you’re going to step on a leaf and hear it crunch.” The fact that you’re laughing makes him turn a deeper red and mumble at you to shut up, which you don’t do.

You both hold up a conversation about school for a little longer before it switches over to things outside of school as well. You find out that Karkat works at a café and how he has a weird passion for shitty romcoms and the smell of vanilla, which is kind of weird but also kind of suits him in a way that could only suit Karkat Vantas. Eventually the conversation drizzles down and John gives you a regretful look as he informs you that he has to go so he can be home by four thirty and you nod and exchange a few more words before you’re left alone again. The whole time John had been there he’d had a guilty aura about him and though you weren’t sure why you hadn’t wanted to bring it up, so you let John keep to himself whatever it was that John was keeping to himself.

After he was gone, though, that pretty much left you to think about how autumn smelled. You got up, having changed back into your own clothes a few days ago, and stared at the window for a minute or two before glancing at your arm and untaping the tape holding down the IV and tugging the needle out, knowing you would get in _so_ much trouble for this later but not really caring at the moment. Sharp pain shot through your ribs- which were sore from both the binder (which he wasn’t wearing, as the hospital wouldn’t allow him to do so until your ribs were healed. For now a really baggy red sweater and sports bras would have to do) and the fact that you threw himself in front of a car- but you kept walking all the same and pushed open the door to your room, making your way down the hallway as casually as if you weren’t breaking nearly every rule by doing this. It must have worked, though, because you managed to make your way outside without being caught. You took a deep breath in and were hit with a familiar scent that you did indeed have to associate with autumn. You stepped onto the grass and purposefully planted your foot on a leaf to hear it crunch and let a smile drift across your face at the sound. Yeah, alright, you supposed you had to agree with Egbert on this one. For a place associated with doom and death you had to admit that this place wasn’t half bad.  There were trails and the leaves from trees were all drifting down into the ponds around you, scattered about with large oak trees here and there. The pages of a notebook were fluttering from the wind and were covered in dirt from the exact same dirt that was being blown onto it from the dirt on the ground next to it. The thing about notebooks, though, was that they didn’t belong on the ground and abandoned next to trees. It looked really old, like _really_ old. The front cover was just brown and leather and the pages were torn around the edges, probably worn from age. All the same you pick it up and inspect it. The pages all seem mostly empty, some are missing—ripped out by someone, probably, and the only pages with anything on them are the backs of pages where drawings have been done. It’s been here a long time, that much is obvious. If it was somebody’s at one time, they’ve left it here for good this time. The front of every single page is blank. Almost.

On the first twenty fronts-of-pages there’s writing in neat, blocky handwriting. They’re descriptions of places. They aren’t big, wild and extravagant places, either. They’re places like a river that the author found in a forest. It’s described as a place that the unknown author never wanted to leave, though. The way they worded it, it sounded like the best place they’d ever been to, even if it was just a muddy forest. They worded it as if it were a beautiful place to be, a wonderful reason for living. However, if it was a reason for living you supposed that you couldn’t just discard it.

What would it be like, you wondered, to find a place like that? To find a place so amazing that you would be able to spend time writing about it in an old leather notebook as if they were each the best thing that had ever happened to you?

A lot of pages were missing. Which left you eighty pages, front and back. Which meant forty fronts of pages, which meant twenty blank fronts of pages. Five of the pages had either some of x running across them or had been soiled by what looked like coffee. That meant fifteen completely blank, usable pages left.

You slipped the notebook in your pocket, turning and heading back to the hospital in hopes that you could return before anyone even realized that you were missing.  Fifteen pages were left. Fifteen pages that you could fill with places just as beautiful and wonderful and meaningful as the ones already in there. What a stupid, girly thing to do. Still, you would finish the project that a stranger hadn’t finished for themselves. You would fill it up with fifteen reasons to stay alive, and by the end of your project you hoped that it would be enough.

  
______ ______ _____ _____ ______ ______

 

When you got back to the hospital you were pretty sure you hadn’t been caught because you walked by several nurses from your floor and none of them seemed in any kind of hurry to return you to your room any time soon. You made your way back to the drab white room, going through a waiting room on the way there and trying to remember exactly what number your room was, which you admitted to yourself that you probably should have checked before you left. Oh well, though, because it’s too late to go back now.

You pause, though, because on the way to the ward that they’d put you in was another ward. And in the halls of that ward a door was propped open and a boy was sitting inside and swinging his legs back and forth while sitting on the bed. He looked tired, but he looked bored out of his mind. Dave probably would have kept walking and dismissed the kid as just another sucker in this hell of a world, except that the skinny, pale and tired kid wasn’t just another skinny, pale and tired kid.

“Fancy meeting you here, Karkat Vantas.”

He glanced up at you, staring at you for a minute before emitting a low growling sound that was probably a groan, but you weren’t sure.

“Are you even supposed to be up?” He asked in a defeated tone. He took your smirk as a correct and resounding ‘no’ and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” You grin wider, leaning against the doorframe to the room.

“You can’t contain me, my friend, for I am an untamable rebel.”

“Uh huh,” Karkat replied in a bored voice. “Then I’d like to see you rebel against the doctor— _your_ doctor, by the way, who’s coming down the hallway.”

A single glance confirms this information and you sent him a joking wink, which makes him groan again as you tell him, “gotta blast,” and push off the doorway, walking down the hallway again like you weren’t totally breaking all of the rules right now. You hear the doctor talking with Karkat back in his room but don’t try and listen to what they’re saying, just returning to your own room (the room number was 413B) and hoping that nobody would question why the IV was discarded on the table rather than in your arm.

It’s only later that you pull out the notebook again and flip through to study the drawing that you realize how amazingly _good_ the drawings actually are.


	13. Act Three, Part Five

They’re letting you out today, which makes it sound like you’re finally getting a little freedom again. You are not, of course, getting any more freedom other than your laptop and being able to actually leave your room rather than sitting in the same hospital room for days on end. You regret not going home and going on a suicidal fit instead for several reasons, the first of which is because you didn’t succeed. The second of which is that since it was pointless all that it got you was a lot of concerned looks, a lot of serious talks, a whole lot of aching, a broken rib or two and nobody actually trusts you to walk places alone now.

It’s only when Dirk is there (with an ironic hair ruffle, the asshole) that something occurs to you: you never actually questioned why Karkat was casually in the hospital. Or why most of the doctors seemed to know him, or at least recognize him. He was pale, thin, and when it came to walks or cold weather Karkat noped out faster than you when it came to exercise.) Now you were never one for trying to figure these things out, but you also weren’t stupid and you knew that something was up. Both of the Wednesdays and Fridays that you’d been in the hospital he’d showed up at three exactly, stayed for an hour and a half and then had left right at four thirty. John’s piano recital was tonight and you had plans to be there, and really not because Karkat had practically threatened you to be there. A piano recital seemed like the girliest thing ever to have, which made it sound like something John would totally have, and you were so not willing to miss it.

Because it was on the other side of New York you were forcing your brother to drive you (not that walking was going to be an option anyways, not after your little episode at least). That left you with four hours to do whatever you wanted.

After your brother let you go to your room, anyways. Bro forced you to eat something and telling you that he was also forcing you to see a therapist twice a week before letting you disappear into your room. Oh, the joys of a room all to yourself and closed windows that didn’t allow any sunlight to stream through. Your bed looked incredibly comfortable compared to the one that you’d spent two weeks sitting on while you fucked around on your phone, but because you’d just spent two weeks fucking around on your phone on a bed you decide against that and rather sit down at your laptop, booting it up and savoring the whirring of the ancient Dell Vostro 1220. By ancient you meant maybe ten years old, but if you think about phones ten years ago that was enough to make it obvious that the laptop was definitely anything but first class. It was black and red, didn’t hook up to anything, could play CD’s but not DVD’s, constantly disconnected from the Wi-Fi and glitched every ten minutes. But it worked just fine and was equipped with Windows 7, so you weren’t complaining at all. Sure, it couldn’t run a copy of Amnesia or Stairs, but it could at least connect you with the other introverts of the world, and that was good enough for you.

When it finally boots up and it’s just you and the soft whir of the fan you log into Pesterchum and read the messages that have been left from John.  There’s an unopened conversation from a username you’ve never known from just a few hours ago, but you don’t bother with it and instead just read John’s messages.

>> ghostyTrickster [GT] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 9:00pm <<

GT: oh my god dave you have to come back to school right this moment

GT: when are you coming back anyways?

GT: seriously

GT: school’s really boring without you

GT: everyone here is boring and I never realized that until this moment

GT: they all keep talking about a dumb video game

GT: which I guess it looks kind of interesting but its not THAT interesting

GT: i don’t know how I ever survived before this year

GT: oh! Dave! You’re still coming to my thing on the 21st right?

GT: karkat said that you are but I am not sure whether or not you actually said that or if hes just set on that

GT: speaking of karkat i gave him your chumhandle

GT: he types in all caps and hes kind of hard to miss :B

GT: I don’t actually know when youre going to be back though so I’ll just let you read this whenever you do and you can reply then

>> ghostyTricker [GT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 9:15pm <<

You assume that the unopened conversation is from the shouty asshole who only wears black and gray and reluctantly go to open that as well, skimming through it quickly and finding that it was pretty much just the exact same thing, which meant he had probably hassled John for your chumhandle (or John gave it to him without Karkat asking, which honestly wouldn’t have surprised you either) and had messaged you to ensure that you would be there that night. You sent them each the same message assuring them that you would, in fact, be there that night. You closed the window, going and trying to catch up with the things happening on the internet for the next two hours before shutting the laptop and letting the whir die down. The battery light blinked at you and you plugged in the old thing before sitting in the dark for a minute or two. You pushed back your chair, opening the door to your room and going out into the living room at the end of the hall where Bro is working. He glances up at you and you know he watches you for a minute before you cut through the kitchen and into the other living room where Dirk is sprawled on the couch and playing a video game. You’re not really in the mood for any real human interaction, but you are in the mood for a good game of Left For Dead, so you sit on the couch and he glances up, wordlessly handing you an X-Box controller. You press and hold the button until it flares up green and your character screen pops up. The silence between the two of you is comfortable enough for a solid hour and a half to pass before he finally pressed the ‘pause’ button and in turn you looked over at him. He’s silent for a second and you know something is coming because if it was just a stupid comment he wouldn’t have had to think this hard about it.

“If it was because I’m going to college—,”

“It’s not,” you cut him off before he can even finish. Is that what he thought? As if it could be his fault in any way. “I mean, I guess I wasn’t really sure what to think about you not being here—cause you’ve always been here—but that wasn’t it. I don’t know how to explain it but there wasn’t a _reason…_ I mean, not really. I don’t know why I always think like that when I walk home or why I have days where I hate the thought of getting up, but when I do get up to go to school everything is always just… off. My mind just isn’t there and I don’t want to talk to anyone but I always have to just suck it up and talk to them and go to school and walk home and I hate the idea of doing any of it and that just makes it all worse. It’s like… it’s like everything is detached and I’m seeing it all through a movie. But the movie is _me_ and I have to think up the things that the character has to say. But I’m worried about fucking up the movie and it makes some days really suck. But some days it’s not… there. The detached feeling,” you don’t know why you’re telling him this, you’ve never told anyone this. “I didn’t do it because of anything that anyone’s done. Uh, not really I guess. Nobody that actually matters.” You shrug and look down at the blanket and he must get the hint to drop it because he just glances at his watch and stretches, standing up.

“C’mon, kid, you’ve got places to be. You’ll be late if we don’t leave now.”

“Grab your phone,” Bro adds, from where he’s apparently been sitting at the table on his phone. “And keep it on so that you’ll hear if one of us texts you. I’ll be there at six thirty to pick you up.” You roll your eyes because he’s being way too over-protective but grab your phone and unmute it anyways.  You pluck your coat off a hanger from the closet as a last minute choice and open the door, waiting for your brother and sticking your hands in your pockets as you head down the hall to the elevator.

You spend the first fifteen minutes of the drive arguing over the music with Dirk before you both finally settle on White Lies. It’s old, but you like the way that about it. If anyone asks, though, you like the band for ironic purposes. The rest of the drive is spent in argument over a game coming out soon, which Dirk seems less than interested in but that you’re willing to at least try. It seems high-tech, and thought you haven’t heard too much on it, it’s definitely caught your interest.

 

            He drops you off outside the large building, and it’s so round and tall that you feel small next to it. You shove your hands back in your pocket and take a step towards the door as a familiar voice cuts through the other voices.

“Hey, Strider!” You turn and there’s the shouty asshole in all his glory, still looking as thin and tired as always.

No, you take that back. If you had to describe Karkat Vantas in two words, you don’t know what those two words would be, but you know that they wouldn’t be thin and tired. Yes, he always looks thin—his clothes hang off him, he’s a stick next to anyone and he makes some furniture seem a lot bigger than it actually is—and _yes_ he always looks incredibly tired with his dark eyebags that contrast so obviously on his pale skin and the way that he looks like he could practically fall asleep right that moment sometimes, but the thing about Karkat is that you didn’t notice those things right away.

The things that you did notice were things like the fact that he always sounds like he’s yelling, even when he’s mumbling so softly that you barely catch what he’s saying. Thin and tired makes him sound weak and small, but Karkat Vantas was anything but weak and small. He was fiery and loud, if anything.

So he was hard to miss as he stalked over to you and gave you a small nod as if saying that you would live another day as a reward for showing up to Egbert’s thing.

You walk in together and Karkat seems to know what he’s doing as he leads you down a passage of winding hallways and into a room where John is on his phone and looking like he probably should have been doing something but had just grown too lazy. He glances up at you with a dorky grin that makes your heart flip for reasons you can’t pin-point.

 Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he looks damn good in a suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update by the end of the month, and 'a long time' probably doesn't mean months... two months at the most, even though that's kind of pushing it. Currently, though, I'll be focusing on the matters of the real world and whenever a good day arises I'll get to updating for you all. Until then, I send you one last apology until I return.


	14. Act Three, Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry that my chapters are so short and my author's notes are so long. I'm also sorry this chapter is the suckiest thing ever. I'm literally trash. EDIT- My beta hasn't replied in several months, so I'm working on correcting this myself, though it might be a little while before I'm done because I'm working on other works as well.

Personally, you’d never learned how to play the piano. Even if you _had_ taken piano as a kid, you’re pretty sure you would have really sucked. John, on the other hand, plays like he’s a professional pianist, like he’s Mozart instead of that dorky kid who’d given you directions to the store. When you’d seen him up on the stage you’d felt almost proud of the dork.

He swayed slightly as he played, not so much that he looked nervous but just enough that he seemed so into the music that it looked like he’d forgotten that he was even up on a stage. He had music in front of him, yet his eyes remained closed and it was pretty obvious he’d memorized the pieces. To think you hadn’t even known that he played piano until a few weeks ago.

You’d decided on leaning against one of the walls along the very edge of the room with Karkat rather than trying to find the seats assigned to you on your tickets. Your seats, even if the tickets are from John, are still pretty far back and you would have been sitting with a bunch of parents and grandparents of the other kids who were playing tonight, anyways. This way, even if it’s probably not allowed, you’re at least close to the stage. Karkat, leaning against the wall next to you, has his eyes set on John and he looks slightly less angry than normal in this moment. He looks slightly content, as a matter of fact, and you’re pretty sure that he’s forgotten that he’s supposed to be a loud asshole all the time. So, because you’re also admittedly a pretty big asshole, you decide to spoil the moment.

“You’re at the hospital a lot. Is there a reason?” The question wasn’t planned and you’ve surprised even yourself just a little bit. After you’ve said it, though, you realize that you are, in fact, wondering still. Wondering enough that you’re willing to spoil this perfectly good moment to find out, apparently. You keep your voice bored rather than prying or interested. You see his head turn towards you out of the corner of your eye all the same. He shrugs and turns his eyes back to the stage, where John is practically swaying along with the music.

“Yeah,” he replies simply. “It’s not really a big deal, I guess.”

“You guess?” You’re probably pushing your luck, prying into this. He just shrugs again, silent for a moment before he speaks again.

“Yeah, I guess? I mean I’m here now, right? So obviously it’s not that bad.”

“What’s not that bad? Elaborate a little bit here, please, Karkles.” You continue pushing your luck, prying even still. He remains silent, though, and you take it that the conversation is over. You turn your attention back to John, who’s playing Pour no Tamaki—and though you want to add ‘like the nerd he was’ to the end of that sentence, the fact of the matter was that he was still the best pianist that you’d ever heard.

“Cancer,” Karkat says, and you look over at him in confusion for a moment because you’ve already forgotten your previous conversation from moments ago. “You asked why I’m there so much?” He reminds you. “Leukemia. It’s not really a big deal, it’s been there since I was twelve. I twice a week so they can try and slow it down to prolong the amount of time until I inevitably die.” He shrugs again as if it doesn’t even matter.

“Oh,” you mumble dumbly, feeling like an asshole. He replies with a halfhearted shrug and nods and you both focus on John in a much more forced manner than before. He really is good at what he does.

“Anyways,” Karkat clears his throat softly. “How have you been?”  He’s phrased it like he really is just making idle chatter, but you both know very well he’s asking how you’ve been since you flipped your shit and tried to kill yourself.

“Fine,” you reply. “A little better, I guess? I don’t know, I guess it’s complicated. Like I don’t regret…it, but I’m glad it didn’t work. If that makes sense. If I had the option to go back and not do it, I wouldn’t try and change what happened. But, at the same time, I’m glad that it turned out the way it did. I can’t promise you I won’t do it again because I don’t want to be lying and I don’t know if I can say I won’t try again without lying.” Karkat frowns slightly at that, eyes still glued to John. You wonder if he’s thinking about how cliché this situation is. You know you’re definitely letting the irony of how cliché this is invade your thoughts. The fact of the matter is that you are a boy who’s not grateful for the life that he’s got and he’s losing his against his will. How many _stupid_ books have you read about things like that? Way too many, honestly, and you kind of want to gag right now because it gets even better when you realize that not only is there a plotline of cliché cancer and suicidal tendencies, there’s also the fact that you can feel yourself falling slowly more and more in love with the absolute _dork_ playing the piano right now. You really don’t care how cliché it is, though, because cliché stories always seem to turn out happy and that’s really all you want right now.

Speaking of the boy playing piano up on the stage right now, he’s switched songs and is now playing a ballad that you don’t recognize at all but that’s no doubt more beautiful than the previous song. You settle back into comfortable silence with Karkat, silently wondering if he knows anything about you—if he knows you’ve got a binder on right now1, if he knows your real name is Elizabeth Dove Strider and that you plan on getting it legally changed soon2. To what, though, you’re not entirely sure. Well, Dave Strider, of course, but when it comes to the whole ‘middle name’ thing you don’t even know what you think you like, or if you even want to have a middle name. Perhaps you’ll choose Elizabeth, if only because of ironic purposes. That name’s been beside you for a long time now and even though you’ve never actually gone by it, it just feels wrong to leave it behind completely. If anyone bothers to question it, you’ll probably just tell them that it’s ironic. And it is, in a way, hating the name so much and not wanting to leave it behind at the same time3.

You’re spacing out again and thinking about things that don’t matter at this very moment, though, and you snap out of your thoughts to find Karkat watching you silently. You flash him a small smirk and he scowls at you slightly. Back on stage John is still playing, but the song is slowing down and you think that means that it’s almost over.

It does, in fact, end in about that moment, left lingering on a note that draws out for at least thirty seconds before you’re all plunged into silence. Someone claps, and though it’s not you you’re the next one. And then everyone’s clapping and John is standing up and plucking up his music like there’s not hundreds of people clapping for him and bows slightly before walking off-stage. You feel Karkat poke your shoulder and when you glance over he jabs his thumb towards the exit. Oh, that’s right; you’re allowed backstage to see him, aren’t you?

You follow the short boy down several long, twisting hallways again and end up back at the same room as before. John is inside just like before, on his phone again like he _hadn’t_ just been up on stage in front of all those people wowing them with his amazing skills. If he hadn’t been supposed to do that and you’d come here to bust him because someone had told you he’d broken the rules and you were an angry principal, he probably could have just shrugged and said he’d been there in that room the whole time and you would have believed him.

You offer him a high-five, which he accepts as he puts his phone in his pocket and stands up.

“That’s all I need to do tonight. My dad’s here, he can just bring us all home, if you want?”

“Yeah,” you agree, because you really don’t want your brothers’ to smother you anymore tonight. “By the way, Egbert, rockin’ performance tonight.”

He grins, and you know he knows very well how good he is with just one glance at that smug look on his face.

“Thanks,” he replies, opening the door and leading you back into the winding halls. You’re really, really glad that you didn’t come here by yourself, because you would have no doubt gotten very, very lost in all these long, winding passages. There’s a big room right outside the performance hall and in that big room standing along the walls on his phone is a man who John walks up to. John’s dad looks up at you all and gives you all a small nod, probably doing the parental thing where they count to make sure everyone is there even when it’s plainly obvious that three kids were staring at them waiting to be taken home. Whatever works, though, you suppose.

The car ride home is mostly silent, with the exception of a few ‘congratulations’ and several bits of idle conversation to go along with John’s soft humming that would fill some of the silence. When you reach your apartment building you and Karkat both get out (you’ll admit, you totally forgot that he lived in the same building as you for a while there). John waves and you raise a hand up in a returned farewell. Your hands are back in your pockets and once again you’re standing in silence with Karkat. It’s a chilly night out and the wind’s not helping. Regardless, neither of you makes a move to go back inside.

After several minutes of silence Karkat turns to you.

“Sup?” You greet him like he’s not been with you the entire night.

“Shut up,” he replies, opening the door to the apartment complex. He holds it open for you like a gentleman, though, and you make sure to at least slightly nod a thank you to him. The door swings shut behind both of you and you walk up the stairs in silence for three flights until he stops and you assume that you’ve reached his floor. You feel slightly stupid for having taken the stairs, probably because you live on the top floor.

“I’ll see you at school on Monday.” He says, and though it sounds like it’s meant to be parting words, it’s also you being told that you damn well better be at school on Monday or you’ll have a shouty asshole after you. You nod.

“Yeah, see you on Monday.”

Back in your apartment Bro and Dirk are sprawled on the couch playing Plants vs Zombies. Dirk, a cactus, is doing a really shitty job of trying to kill a zombie. You tell him so as a hello and receive a pillow from the couch to the face. A cheeky grin is all that your brother gets in reply, though, and then you’re off to get apple juice.4 You bring the glass with you back to your room, shutting the door gingerly behind you and reopening your Pesterchum client, where your conversation with Luke is still pulled up. The hum of your laptop fills the otherwise silent air for the moment and you read through it this time, your eyes lingering on the last message. You snap the laptop shut again, pushing it aside and leaving it on the edge of your desk for several moments. You don’t reply to him, and you probably never even will reply to him.

You pull out the book you found on the grounds of the hospital instead. You thumb through the drawings, letting your eyes run over trees and Paris and people that the artist must have known. There’s flowers of sorts in there, they must have liked nature. Whoever they were, though, had filled up every single back of every single page in that notebook and then left it lying under a tree. Was it supposed to be poetic? You can’t tell. The blank, bare fronts are all that’s untouched in it, though.

You pick up a pencil that’s lying on your desk, discarded. You don’t know what you’re planning on writing, but it’s going to be something just as beautiful as the drawings from the backs of the pages. Not the words themselves, if only because you’ve always been awful at writing of any kind. But the thought, instead.

You write down the name of the first song that John played.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- I wrote the draft for this chapter in Creative Writing and my handwriting is really messy and long story short I thought it said boner and the unedited version of this chapter says, 'if he knows you've got a boner right now' and I'm actually just trash.  
> 


	15. Act Four, Part One

You have mixed opinions on how you feel about snow. On one hand it’s kind of fun, you guess, and there’s that inner child in you that still gets hyped about snow. On the other hand, it makes it kind of hard to drive and it’s cold, wet and sticks to everything.

You might have been able to enjoy this particular snowfall if you were at home watching How I Met Your Mother instead of driving halfway across New York to see a therapist that you don’t even want to see.

Apparently, though, it’s a requirement of the hospital that you see a therapist. That’s probably better than getting sent to a mental hospital and you’re really not sure how you managed to avoid the whole ‘mental hospital’ thing. You’ll admit that you don’t know much about mental hospitals, aside from the things in movies and books that are probably completely fake, but it really can’t be that much fun to get sent to one. All the same, the thought of seeing a therapist really sucks. The therapist will probably psychoanalyze you and make you talk about things that you don’t want to talk about and then send you to the mental hospital anyways. You aren’t too keen on being sent to a looney-bin.

The building is tall. You wonder how many floors there are, thinking that there must be at least forty. A lot of buildings in New York are tall, of course, but this one towers over most of them. It makes you squirm slightly, being so small compared to the building that you’re being sent into. Bro nudges your back slightly, though, and you shrug it off and step inside. Your shades are slipping down your face from the snow and you push them back up to where they belong. Inside it’s not too bad, though everything is blindingly white. You perch on the edge of a couch while Bro goes and talks to the receptionist. You think that if you sit any further back on the couch you’ll leave a crease in the perfect room. It’s the kind of room that you would _not_ want to hold a glass of wine in. You remember a room in Luke’s house, his living room, was purely white. You lived in a constant fear that you’d spill something on the floor. You only did once, a glass of chocolate milk when you were ten, and Luke informed you that he spilled things all the time and that they washed out just fine.

You don’t have any glasses of chocolate milk, or anything really, for that matter, on you at the moment. That’s probably good, though, because you’re already nervous enough without having to worry about spilling something in this perfect, pristine room.

Bro walks over to where you are, sitting down next to you and pulling out his phone. You kind of wish you could see into his mind, see what he’s thinking. How does he feel about all this? The fact that his little brother tried to kill himself? The fact that his little brother was his brother instead of his sister? Was that weird to him? Did he wish it wasn’t like that?

Sometimes you wonder if he would rather he didn’t have to deal with all of your shit. Sometimes you think that you wish you didn’t have to deal with all of your shit. He, though, has to pay the bills and pay even more to take care of you. You think maybe they’d be a lot better off without you. They could move back to Texas, they’d have more money. They wouldn’t have to drive you places. They wouldn’t have to worry about making sure you didn’t off yourself. They wouldn’t have to worry about—

“Dave Strider,”

Your head jerks up. There’s a woman dressed in—you guessed it—all white in the doorway. She makes eye contact with you and you stand up, shooting Bro a glance without thinking. You don’t ask him to come with you, you don’t want to bother him even more. He already had to drive you all this way just to try and make sure you don’t jump in front of a car again. You follow the woman to where she leads you. The door she leads you to bears a plaque that reads ‘Porrim Maryam’. That’s probably the name of the therapist. The woman gives you a small smile and tells you to go in whenever you’re ready.

Maybe that means you’ll be standing in this hallway forever.

You twist the doorknob and step in. There’s another woman in a green and black dress sitting at a desk, typing. Your heart beats quickly and you swallow hard, panicking slightly and wanting to turn right now and walk back out, tell Bro the appointment was cancelled and go home.

She looks up at you and smiles. She stands up, closing the laptop as she did so, and crosses the room to where you’re standing. She’s tall and though you aren’t short you feel small next to her.

“My name’s Porrim Maryam,” she greets you with a warm smile. “You can call me whatever you like, really. I don’t have a preference. What about you? Any preferred name? Anything I should know before we begin?”

“Dave,” you reply, though your voice is small and slightly high pitched and squeaky. Yeah, you want to leave _now._

“Well, Dave, have a seat and we’ll get started if that’s alright with you.” She gives you another gentle smile and takes a seat in one of the chairs by the door, gesturing to the other one. You sit down and sink down into the chair. “Alright, so we both know why you’re here. I don’t think we have to go over all the vague questions, I have a pretty good feeling we both know there’s some major depressive issues going on here. I feel like getting to know you a little better would be good for today, don’t you think? So tell me a little bit about yourself, Dave. Have you always lived in New York? What kind of music are you into? Been anywhere cool lately?”

You wonder for a moment if there’s a catch behind the question, if there’s a certain answer that you’re supposed to give. You answer hesitantly, “I lived in Texas up until this year. I like… a lot of different kinds of music. Rap and… I like to mix music… I went to a piano recital last week. It sounded boring but…it was pretty cool.” _God,_ you keep trailing off and your voice is high and you’d _punch_ yourself right now if you didn’t already seem crazy to this woman.

“Texas!” She exclaims as if it’s the most intriguing thing she’s heard all day. “I lived in Texas for a while, it’s a very nice place. Which part of Texas did you live in?”

“Corpus Christi,” your replies are coming a little easier now. She’s not staring you down and she’s not scribbling in a little notebook, which helps a little bit if you’re being honest. “Downtown.”

She nods again before asking you another question. “Were there many people there that you moved away from? Friends, family members, perhaps?”

There it is. There’s the psychoanalysis.

“No…” you reply, trailing off again. “I had one friend there that I was really close to but… we stopped talking a little while before we moved.”

“And you moved to New York because…?”

“My brother got a job transfer,” you pause. You aren’t sure how much she knows about you. You don’t want to talk about transitioning, not now, not really. She just nods, doesn’t pry for more information.

“Well, I think that’s enough for now, hmm? Do you have any questions about how this works? About therapy in general?” You shake your head. You’ve got plenty of questions, but you’re not one asking the questions here, now are you? Apparently this prompts her to continue. “Alright. Well then I’ll just clear up several things that you may or may not know already. First of all, and most importantly, therapy is for recovery. You’ll be coming here so that, I hope, I can help you clear out your mind and so that you can voice your thoughts. You can get a lot of things from therapy, including advice, help, opinions and healthy solutions to dealing with any struggles you might be going through. However, you can’t rely on therapy for everything. There are things you’ll have to do for yourself if you want to get better. You have to listen to the advice, ask for help and _use_ the healthy solutions to any issues you might have. Therapy will help, but you’ve got to work for recovery.” She gives you another smile and leans back in her chair.

You watch her silently for several moments before nodding. You think that’s what she was waiting for because she goes back to asking you questions. They’re vague, never heavy and never about the real reason why you’re here. You’re okay with that. The time must go faster than you think it’s going because it’s not too long before she stands up and shakes your hand.

“Call me if you need anything,” she tells you. “And have a merry Christmas. I’ll see you in two weeks’ time.” She smiles softly.

Oh. Oh that’s right. Christmas.

That’s… that’s in a week and a half.

Crazy stuff, there.

She leads you out into the hallway and down several floors to the lobby where Bro’s still on his phone. You go back to the couch and sink down into it once more while Bro stands up and goes to talk to Porrim, who you’ve decided to call by her first name. Eventually they finish and Porrim gives you a wave while Bro leads you out the door to the car. You walk in silence and the silence remains after you both get in all the way until you’ve been driving for a little while. You’re staring at the snow that’s still falling. If this wasn’t New York the snow would probably be kind of deep by now. You take a deep breath, sighing heavily and resting your cheek on the freezing window, still staring at the people outside on the sidewalk, bustling about and carrying little children places while they whined about the cold and rubbed their red, runny noses.

“So,” Bro begins, a slightly awkwardness seizing the conversation. “How was it?”

“I lived,” you reply, not glancing over at him. “Porrim’s nice. She didn’t ask me about much, not in uh, not in that area. Which was good. Fine, I mean.”

“Two weeks?” He asks, and you’re pretty sure he’s checking to make sure he didn’t mishear the time that you need to go back. You wonder if he was actually listening when she was talking to him. It wouldn’t surprise you if he wasn’t.

“Yeah. Two weeks… and after that she’ll come up with a set date. Probably depending on how crazy I seem.” You shrug slightly, wondering if she’ll make you take medication.

“You’re not crazy,” he chides you, turning down a street that you recognize. You’re probably almost home already. Things are going fast today. “You’re _dealing_ with things.” There’s something in his voice that makes you laugh a little bit. Cliché. You can tell he’s only half-joking. You pause in your laughter, though, and reply blandly,

“You have to be just a little bit crazy to try and kill yourself…”

Bro makes a small sound of agreement. “A little bit, yeah. But everyone’s a little bit crazy. Anyway, you wouldn’t be a Strider if you were completely sane.”

You shrug a little bit, but you can feel a little bit of weight come off of your shoulders. At least he didn’t tell you that you weren’t crazy at all. You might have screamed if he’d done that.

You’re home now and you notice for the first time since you came home last week that there’s lights strung over the canopy over the door to your building. How did Christmas manage to creep up on you? You _love_ Christmas.

You climb out of the car and follow Bro into the building, walking into the elevator and leaning against the wall while it goes up and gives your stomach the churny-elevator feeling. It dings and you escape the elevator music and step into blissful silence once more.

Bro unlocks the door to your apartment and you both step in. Dirk glances up from _Skyrim_ for several seconds to nod a halfhearted hello.

“Glad to see you didn’t die,” he tells you, and you think that’s his way of saying, _it looks like it went well and I’m glad for that,_ but you’re not entirely sure.

You wait until Bro logs onto the computer and gets back to working to grab your coat and soundlessly slip out the door again. You never did buy a new coat, but this one’s not girly. The hood had fuzz on it, but it was brown and you’re pretty sure that some guy’s coats were like that. You don’t go very far, just up a flight of stairs to the roof.

You’re not alone, either. There’s a thin boy swinging his legs over the end. Music plays from a phone that you assume is in his pocket. You walk over to where he is, leaving footprints in the snow that’s accumulated on the roof. You sit by him, swinging your legs over the edge as well. He doesn’t glance over at you, just continues sitting in the silence broken by the music playing.

“ _What Sarah Said_?” You tilt your head towards his pocket. “Death Cab for Cutie. They’re one of my favorite bands.”

He still doesn’t look over at you as he replies.

“I like _I Will Follow You Into the Dark_ more, but _What Sarah Said_ is alright.” He agrees. His voice is quieter than usual, calmer. He must be cold, out here in just a thin hoodie. You don’t comment on his possible coldness, though.

“Ever heard of Good with Grenades?” You ask, deciding that you share music tastes. He nods in reply.

“They’re alright.” Neither of you says anything for several seconds until he finally does look over at you. “You’re gonna catch another cold.”

“Says the kid in a flimsy sweater.” You shoot back, sticking your hands in your coat pocket.

“I’m always cold anyways,” he replies softly, shifting his gaze back down to the slowly darkening city. You aren’t sure how to reply to that, actually.

“Maybe if you tried being warm,” you suggest. He just shrugs.

“That’s like saying maybe if you tried to be completely happy you’ll be happy. That’s like saying that if I try hard enough maybe I can stop having cancer. I don’t think it works that way. I’m just always cold.”

“If you would put on a coat,” you reply blandly. “Maybe it would help. Just sayin’, man.” He shrugs once more. “And it’s not like you can’t get better.”

“It’s not like _you_ can’t get better,” he rebuttles. “And I’m not even saying you’re not trying, or that you _won’t_ get better, I’m not saying that _I_ won’t get better. I’m just saying that sometimes those things don’t happen. I’m just saying that sometimes… those things don’t happen. So why try, I guess?” You aren’t sure how to reply to that, either, for several heartbeats.

“How ‘bout this. You put on a coat from now on and I’ll start trying to get better, too.” He shrugs a little from where he’s sitting, not saying anything for a little bit before he looks over at you.

“Fine,” he agrees slowly. “Deal.”


	16. Act Four, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the progress thus far, good for nothing but terrified friends and family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself this would be a Christmas chapter because HEY! Christmas was four days ago, but then I started typing it and never got anywhere but THiS mess. Let me just... apologize...before you even read this. And you were all so excited, too! : D

You didn’t know if your brothers were being stupid or smart. Christmas, four days away, was fast approaching and it was about that time of the year for last minute gift-shopping. Dirk had a shift to work all day today, making up for a day that he’d taken off last week, and Bro had a conference with some people that you couldn't care less about but who Bro seemed to find important enough to actually agree to see. You didn’t have a single plan for the day, however, and Dirk looked like he was about to just drag your to work with him. Under normal circumstances you would have pulled the, ‘I’m not six years old and I can take care of myself’, but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t work very well at this current moment in time. Past you probably would have also pulled the ‘I’ll just walk to a friends or something,’ but you’re pretty sure that would just give Dirk a heart attack. Bro seemed fine enough with letting you stay home by yourself, leaning against the doorway and swinging his keys around his finger with a bored look on his face, so you knew for a fact it was only Dirk’s mother-henning that was keeping you from actually being alone for more than five minutes.

“You do realize that there’s gonna be a time when you can’t just keep me constantly surrounded by people, right?” You point out flatly, staring at Dirk.

“Yeah, I do,” he shoots back. “And that time’ll come eventually, preferably at a date when I know you’re stable enough to handle that.” You open your mouth to argue, but he just raises his voice and talks over you. “Don’t even try telling me you’re stable because I can assure, and I don’t mean this in a harsh way, you really aren’t right now. Someday, but not right now. I’m not saying you can’t _handle_ staying home by yourself or that the minute we leave you’ll do something stupid intentionally, but I think the fact that you jumped in front of a car on an impulse decision says a lot about this current situation.” You stare at him in silence, fuming and trying to think of something to say back. You can’t think of anything, slouching back slightly and just groaning loudly in defeat. Bro still hasn’t said anything and you don’t even bother trying to make him convince Dirk to let you stay home alone. You all stand in the living room in tense silence for another few minutes before you feel something press into your hand and you at your hand to see your phone being shoved into your grip.

“Just,” Dirk takes a deep breath. “Just call someone if something happens, okay? That Karkat kid, he lives in the building, right? And John lives a couple streets away. I don’t care who you call, but for Christ’s sake Dave, just call someone if anything happens. Even if it’s just a _thought,_ don’t do the same thing as last time or I _swear,_ ” he doesn’t finish his sentence, just straightens up and walks towards the door, grabbing his own keys and phone and leaving with Bro behind him.

The house is completely silent. You’d been waiting for the silence for so long that you were practically desperate for it. You’d always liked being alone, and losing that in a moment had been killing you. Now that you’re completely alone, though, you feel just the smallest bit of unease creep up your spine. You shake it off, pad into the kitchen and run your gaze over the food before grabbing a bag of chips and returning to the living room, basking in the quiet now that you’d told yourself there was literally nothing to be worried about. How I Met You mother is on TV and you select the channel, sprawling out over the couch. You continue watching for a total of two hours until it switches over to MacGyver and you lose interest. You, instead, head to your room and grab your laptop, flipping it open and scrolling mindlessly through Tumblr. You bore of that, too, though before you can even get through twenty posts. You sit up and snap your laptop shut, stretching. The window to the living room’s been open all day and up until now the cold, fresh air felt nice. Now it just makes you absolutely freezing and you go to grab a sweater from your room but pause by the bathroom instead. Maybe a bath would be warmer? You’ve heard from places that baths calm people down, too, right? Not that you’re not calm, of course, because you’re _absolutely_ calm. 100% calm, as a matter of fact. You can just never get too calm, that’s all.

You space out a little bit for a while, your mind filled with other thoughts. It makes you feel floaty and you don’t even realize that you’ve actually run a bath until you’re staring down at the full tub. The water, lapping at the sides of the tub, is enticing for reasons other than the warmth, and it makes you feel just a little bit sick. Your mind is still full and you’re still not thinking too well and the water still looks damn enticing for vicious reasons—you don’t even bother taking off your clothes. You sink down into it slightly, resting your nose just above the water and thinking. The water makes soft splashing sounds as it hits the tub, but you don’t hear it. In the back of your mind you register that the sounds are there, that the water is indeed hitting the tub and causing them, but in the front of your mind you’re suddenly very aware of the fact that you’re alone. You’re completely and entirely alone and you’re the one who convinced them to leave you home alone, but you’re not so sure if this is a good idea anymore. Not because you can’t _handle it,_ and definitely not because you’re not stable, only because there’s something eerie about knowing how quiet it is and how alone you actually are at the moment.

You’re alone in general, though, aren’t you? You let that sink in for several minutes, sinking lower into the bath. _This wasn’t a good idea, this wasn’t a good idea, this wasn’t a good idea, this wasn’t a good idea, this wasn’t a good idea, this wasn’t a good idea, should’ve listened to Dirk, should’ve listened to Dirk, should’ve listened to Dirk._

Your mind is repeating a mantra and your head is submerged in the water as your mind clutters up with thoughts. Your mind is frantic all the sudden. It’s everywhere and scattered and your chest feels tight. Your chest keeps getting tighter and you grow more and more panicky as it starts to burn. _Of course it burns, stupid! You’re underwater!_

You practically fly back up, gasping and choking on water and breathing heavily even after you’ve caught your breath, because this is your chance, right? This is perhaps the only chance you’ll have to actually do it. This can be the end of everything, it can stop here.

 _What_ can stop here? You beg your mind for an answer, trying to make sense of at least one thing as your head races and your chest pounds and water laps at your knees.

 _Everything,_ it replies easily. _You can stop hurting people, you can stop being a burden to your brothers, you can stop having to be so different all the time, you can stop needing to be a special little snowflake all the time. You can stop being so different—those people from your school, don’t you think they’d be happier if you just never showed up again? John and Karkat are your friends, though, right? They’ve got other friends though, better things to do with their spare time. And John—wow, he’d definitely be better off without you. You like him, isn’t that just disgusting?_

In the back of your mind you register a sound—a sound growing in volume. It’s wheezing. It’s coming from you. You let a small whine escape and you knot your hands up in your hair, tugging at it a little as you stand up as quickly as you can, falling against the wall for support and stepping over the side of the tub. The water’s sloshing, beckoning, calling for you. There’s no oxygen in there. You fling the door to the bathroom open and find a spot in the hallway to collapse, breathing heavily and wheezing against the door to your room. Your phone lies on the ground by the bathroom door—you thought it’d been ruined in your pocket. Guess not. It’s there—it’s right there! Dirk told you something about it, you know he did, and you’re desperately trying to recall what he said or what you’d been talking about and what you’re thinking right now. You can’t, you can’t, _you can’t._

Your phone’s in your hand now, though, so you continue to hold it in trembling hands, sticky with blood. Blood? You aren’t bleeding. That can’t be blood because you can’t be bleeding because you haven’t been cut on anything. Your fingers are sticky with blood, but you haven’t got a clue where it’s from. Your hands shake harder and you almost drop your phone as your vision blackens on both sides and closes in. You press the home button and rest your finger against it to unlock it. It unlocks. You have something to do, you unlocked this phone for a reason. What was it? What did you have to do?

John—you have to message John. Dirk said to message someone, that’s what he said. He said even if it was small, just a thought. Does this count? Is this even enough to be considered small?

Do you _really_ want to bother John with this right now? He’s probably busy, he’s probably doing something important, you’ll just be disrupting him…

_Help_

Your fingers shakily type out the message and you spell it wrong, but your phone seems to know what you’re saying and fixes it for you. You hit send, dropping your phone on the ground and you can see the light peeking out from the sides where it fell on the carpet. You tremble, wheezing and gasping. You starting sobbing at some point, too. You still can’t breathe and you still can’t think and you wish you didn’t message John because now you’ve just bothered him and there’s no way that you can do it now. There’s… there’s only a way to do it if you do it _right now._

You’re torn, you’re a mess, there’s more blood on your hands, you can’t see. A low whine emits from your throat and you can’t think. You try, you try grabbing at your thoughts and you try breathing. You gulp deep breaths in and wheeze them out, yet it doesn’t make a difference. You can’t get any air in your lungs. You let a laugh bubble out of your chest, gasping and choking over it. Maybe you don’t even have to move to drown yourself—you’re drowning right now as it is.

A hand, a hand’s on your shoulder. That can’t be John—that can be John, you don’t know how long it’s been but it’s only been a couple of minutes and John lives so far away it would take fifteen at best and oh god oh god who’s in your apartment?

“Dave.” A sharp voice and a hand on your shoulder. You want to look up, to see who it is, but you can’t. You can’t move. “Dave,” it says again, a little more persistent. There’s another hand, this time on your own hand and rubbing little circles. “Look at me, Dave, _look at me._ ” Fear is starting to drip from the voice and you jerk your head up to a face you recognize. Karkat, that’s Karkat. Why is he here? You messaged John, how did he even get here? What’s he doing here?

Karkat’s hand shifts from your hand up to your shoulder and he looks you in the eye, beginning to talk in a slow, careful voice. It’s softer than it usually is, it’s so much softer.

“John sent me a message. He’s on his way, alright? John’s going to be here soon. He wasn’t home yet, though, he was on his way back. He sent me a message explaining the situation and told me to go over and make sure you were alright until he got here. John’s going to be here soon.” He keeps repeating himself, getting the important bits stuck in your head. “Until then—no, Dave, _look at me_ —until then just keep listening and breathe, alright? All you have to do is breathe like this,” he pauses and breathes in a long, slow breath, holding it for a moment before breathing back out. You can’t do that—there’s no way you can do that when you don’t have any air in you right now. You’re going to die, you’re going to die, you’re going to die. “You can do that, start out slow and match it to mine,” you don’t know how he even _knows_ any of this. Does he know what he’s doing? You hope so, because you sure as hell don’t know what’s going on right now. You feel him tilt your head back up so you’re looking at him. When did you even look down? You can’t stop shaking, you can’t start breathing. Your chest is searing. Your head gets tilted back up again, held there this time. You stare at him, still gaping, still gasping. He draws in a breath again, not as big as his first demonstration. He continues doing so until you draw in the longest breath you can manage before puffing it back out in a wheeze, eyes unfocused. He waits until you focus back on him to start again. By the time the front door bangs open you’ve manage to start breathing again, if only a little. You see another shadow in the hallway and feel someone kneel next to you. A slightly panicked voice asks what to do.

“Just talk to him, do what I was just doing, do whatever you need to do to keep him calm.” Hands release your shoulders and Karkat disappears from your sight. Your breath takes a gasping turn again as you slump back against the wall with a small panicked sound. A new face take’s Karkat’s place, though, and through the haze you acknowledge that it’s John. Footsteps disappear and he hasn’t left, he’s still in the apartment, but you don’t know what he’s doing. John looks grimly determined, hands taking your own as he pulls you to him and into his lap. He’s warm—he’s so warm. Your eyes are unfocused, staring at the ground (there’s little drops of blood there, too. Where’s it all coming from?).

You hear him say something to you. He says it again, and then once more until you manage to actually catch on to what he’s saying.

“Look up at me.” You listen, your eyes meeting his and staying there. He begins talking again, in a slow steady voice. You have no idea what he’s talking about, you just stare at his eyes. They’re blue. They’re so, so blue. You watch his eyes, you steal his warmth, you listen to his voice until you manage to make out bits and pieces of it. Is he…is he talking about a video game?

You grasp sentences now, stringing them together and forcing all your focus into matching his breathing and into hearing about this game and you shove all the extra into glances at his eyes every now and then.

Your breathing smooths out, your chest stops burning. Your thoughts are messy, still, cluttered, but air fills your lungs and you gulp it in greedily as footsteps return. You’re trembling still, still trying to think, but able to breathe. John doesn’t say anything to Karkat, who’s now back on the ground with the two of you, and Karkat doesn’t say anything at all as something warm drips down your arm—a towel, a wet towel. He’s cleaning off your arm, why is he cleaning off your arm. Your gaze jerks down to it, to the white towel that’s cleaning your arm. It’s not white where it touched your arm, though, because it’s red. Your other arm is decorated with little scratches and deep scratches—when did you do that?

“—Ave!” Your eyes whip back up to John’s as he starts talking again.

It’s another long time before you’re staring blankly at a spot on the wall, breathing steadily and only shaking a little, mind wrapped back around your thoughts. No one’s talking right now. Maybe no one knows what to say. You don’t know what to say.

“Dave,” John says, stealing your attention once more. “I’m going to text Dirk, is that fine?” You don’t say anything for a minute.

“He’s at work,” you whisper, the first thing you’ve said this whole time.

“So…” John prompts you on, trying to see what you’re getting at.

“So I don’t wanna make him come home,” you mumble, drawing your legs up and dropping your chin in them like you’re five.

“What if I tell him he doesn’t have to come home?”

“He’ll come home,” you whisper back. “He knew it was a bad idea to leave me home alone, and he was right. I couldn’t fucking handle it.”

“It’s not your fault,” John brushes it off easily. “I’ll tell him we’re here with you, then.”

“He works all day,” you object. “You’d have to stay until midnight…”

“We’ll stay as long as you want us to,” John replies, offering you a little smile. “And then we’ll take a fun walk to Dirk’s work.” You lift your head up to stare at him stubbornly and he just continues staring back with that little smile you can never say no to. Goddammit, John!

“Fine,” you breathe. “But you’re only staying until ten at the latest. I’m not making you stay until midnight.”

“Until ten,” he agrees, looking over at Karkat as if telling him to agree.

“Until ten,” Karkat repeats, leaning against the wall across from the two of you.

God you hate these dorks.


	17. Act Four, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward silence ensues, gay babies watch a movie, Dave takes a nap, John and Karkat play Trash and Dave goes to Dirk's work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright here's my excuses this time: Finals means studying instead of writing, I got a lead in a play and that means a lot of work with my lines and practice and there's my health and family problems and my recent surgery. I went in for my second surgery today and they fucked up and it had to be cancelled lmao.

Silence had enveloped the three of you again, probably coming from nobody knowing what to say. Karkat stood up, mumbling something about going to put the dirty towel with the wash. You stayed leaned against the wall with John, neither of you saying anything for another stretch of seconds.

“You’re soaking wet,” he points out, motioning to your drenched attire. You almost reply with a flat, ‘ _I tried to drown myself, yeah, I’m pretty soaked now,_ ’ but instead you just mumble a halfhearted,

“Yeah,” you hear him sigh, a soft, low sound that you can’t decipher the meaning of.

“You…” he trails off, shaking his head a little bit and starting again. “Do you wanna talk about it? Sometimes that helps. You don’t have to, obviously, but I’m gonna be honest—we can’t help if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I don’t want help,” you mutter back.

“Well, either way I’ve just proven a point, then, haven’t it? Some people really, really want help. Some people dread the thought of help. Either way, no one can know unless you talk about it,” he continues on, his voice calm and soothing somehow as he speaks to you slowly. “We don’t know what to do and what not to do unless you tell us. Maybe you just really want a hug, maybe a hug would make things worse. Maybe mentioning certain things or doing certain things sets you off, but we can’t know that unless you tell us.”

“Things don’t set me off,” you send him a look and you expect him to do what he usually does, calmly nodding and moving on from it. He doesn’t, not this time. His face stays how it is now, almost emotionless and almost impossible to read.

“Something did. I hate to break it to you, but people don’t usually end up soaking wet and dripping with blood unless something sets them off.” He sounds a lot like Dirk in this moment and you fight the urge to roll your eyes. You don’t, you try to keep any remaining dignity that you might have intact.

“I guess. I don’t know, sometimes it just happens…” you shrug a little bit and trail off at the end of your sentence.

“Do you know why it happens?”

“Sometimes, sometimes I don’t.” You glance up at him, furrowing your brow as you realize what he’s doing. He flashes you a little bit of a cheeky grin. You see him pause, if only slightly, and he shifts so that his arms are open. You get the message, the offer of the hug is still standing. You debate. At this point, you’ve probably got little to no dignity left to lose, and you’re still shaking a little. You blame that on the cold. John’s warm.

You heave a sigh and shift so that you’re enveloped in his arms and you bury your face in his arms so that your face is in the crook of his neck. He doesn’t object, keeping his arms wrapped tightly around you and brushing his thumbs along your back.

“It was really quiet,” you say quietly into his neck. You don’t know if he can make out what you’re saying through that, but he doesn’t ask you to repeat yourself if he can’t make out the warbled commentary. “And…I don’t know, the window was open. Which was fine, it was just letting in a lot of cold air and I was cold so I went to go shut it. And this whole time I’m thinking like, something’s off. And it’s really quiet and cold and I kind of realized that I was completely alone for the first time since then? And some part of me was telling me that it wasn’t a big deal and whatever. But some part just kept thinking that it was my only chance to try again and that was really stupid because Dirk knew it was a bad idea but I was sick of people thinking that I was going to try and kill myself the minute I was alone and I thought that was stupid so I convinced them to just let me stay home but they were completely right and I almost did. I wasn’t… thinking about that kind of thing, even? I was… I think I was just watching a show and I just kinda spaced out and then I just stopped thinking but I was thinking too much and I kept thinking really stupid things and then voila, I almost tried to fucking off myself.” John’s silent for several moments, not saying anything, and you briefly worry that you’ve scared him off. _Good job with that one._ Your mind sneers. _You must’ve seen it coming, though, didn’t you?_

John shifts and resumes running his thumb along your back. “But you texted me,” he reminds you. You don’t say anything in reply and he continues. “Which means that you didn’t really want to—or at least it means you knew you shouldn’t. Asking for help when you got like that means that you were at least thinking enough to know you needed to text someone.” You shrug and let the conversation drop as Karkat returns again. Sly bastard, you know what he was doing when he left like that. He knew damn well John would drag that out of you. John releases you from the hug and you all sit in an awkward circular triangle in the hallway of your house. Finally John stands up and points to you. “Dave—go change your clothes before you catch a cold. Karkat—go rummage through that movie shelf for something to watch.” You give him a mock salute as he disappears around the corner and you stand up alongside Karkat, who gives you a look you can’t really read.  He turns, though, and walks away as he tucks his hands in his pockets. You’re left in the hallway to get up and lean against the wall for a moment, staring down the empty hall for a moment. You rest your hand on your doorknob and turn it, rummaging through your closet for a change of clothes.

When you walk out into the living room where your two friends are it’s in a hoodie and sweatpants, mostly because you really didn’t feel like putting effort into looking nice. John flicks a piece of popcorn at you when you sit on the couch. He’s got a bowl of it on the coffee table in front of the three of you and boy does the kid like butter. That’s fine, you’re pretty fond of drenching popcorn in butter yourself. The TV is playing a movie that you’ve never seen before, but Dirk’s friend, Jake, seems to like it. From the snippets you’ve seen from it already it looks alright—anyway, it’s better than one of John’s movies. You sink down into the couch, making yourself comfortable. You’ll easily admit that you didn’t pay an ounce of attention to the movie, or the one they showed after that, but you’re also pretty sure that they knew you weren’t even focused on the movies. They didn’t point it out or make you watch them and you’re thankful for that, even if you don’t say anything to them either. It’s apparent that you’ve all silently agreed to not even mention or imply the reason that you’re all there. You’re fine with that, too. You’d prefer to not think about it right now, even if you know you’ll be thinking about it a lot when they leave. You’ll meet Dirk at work at ten and you’ll probably have plenty of time to think then. For now you put little ounces of effort and thought into the activities that John and Karkat keep you occupied with. Those activities range from movies to John trying to teach you to play a card game that you suck at, but that Karkat sucks worse at. He gives up around the third time the cards get shoved to the ground and you all settle on watching Gilmore Girls, for what you claim are ironic purposes. Karkat whines about finals, John gives you commentary on the game that his friends have been prodding you all to play and you go along with it all as if it’s a casual hang-out with your two best bros.

It’s not, and you know that, but you’re content to pretend just for now that they aren’t here because you freaked out and made them come patch you up because you couldn’t handle yourself. You’d texted John, but you’re kind of glad that Karkat ended up here, too. He’s loud, of course, but he’s loud enough to be distracting. You get along with him well, too, and John and Karkat have been friends for years, which always seemed to add a feeling of comfortable familiarity to the air of being around them.  It’s a calm evening, sprawled out on couches in the living room and watching Gilmore Girls with them, even if it is off. Not just because of you, either, you think. There’s something else that’s making this all strange even if you don’t know what it is.  Karkat’s been quieter than usual and you can tell John’s been spaced out, too. John’s always spacey, of course, but he’s focused on his thoughts for once. You have no idea what it is that he’s thinking about, but you don’t intend to pester him to find out. As for Karkat, who’s been sitting on the other side of the couch is near-silence for pretty much this whole time, you know something’s up. He doesn’t say anything, though, so neither do you.

You end up falling asleep on the couch. Neither of them wakes you up, probably because they think you need the sleep or whatever, as if you aren’t always asleep nowadays anyway.

When you wake up you haven’t moved from where you fell asleep and the apartment is quiet. For a moment you wonder if it’s past ten and if they already left to go back home. However, when you listen carefully you hear chatter from the kitchen. It’s somewhat hushed, probably because they still think you’re asleep. Whatever, you’re not complaining. There’s something nice about it. You stand up and stretch, all the same, and make your way to the kitchen as you stifle a yawn. Leaning against the doorway you blearily blink the sleep out of your eyes, which they can’t see of course.

“Sup?” You greet them, catching their attention. John greets you with a little wave and you smirk a little. He’s actually adorable sometimes, you think.

“It’s like, ten thirty,” Karkat informs you, setting his cards (they were playing cards, and if that isn’t the best thing you’ve seen all day you’ll be damned) down on the table. “But I promised to absolutely destroy John at Trash and now that I’ve done so we can go, if you want.” You push off the wall, checking the clock to verify that it is, in fact, ten thirty at night. They’ve stayed a half an hour over what they were originally going to stay. “We didn’t have any place to be,” Karkat continues with a shrug. “John’s gotta be back be eleven, but if we just swing by his place on the way we’ll be good.”

“Works for me,” you reply, eyes glancing away behind your shades. They stayed half an hour longer than they were going to because you fell asleep. They easily could have just left, and you know why they didn’t, and it’s not the fact that they care that makes you so weird—it’s the fact that they care so _much._ None of your friends in Texas would have done anything like this .There’s not a single person you would have texted back in Texas. The only person besides your brothers that you would consider texting in an emergency would have been Luke…but you won’t even answer his messages nowadays.

Is that just you being stupid? Should you answer him, even if he was a complete asshole to you on your last days there? No…no, maybe some other time. For now, you want nothing to do with him.

John’s been talking about something this whole time that you’ve been spaced out and you tune back in to realize that he’s talking about the game he’s brought up a couple of times. You probably won’t play it, the game is on a system that’s meant to make things as real as possible, but it just gives you a headache when you play it. You’ll leave those two nerds to their game.

They each stand up and you grab your keys and phone, attempting to smooth down your hair from what must be some pretty great bedhead. Karkat opens the door like the gentleman he his and you thank him for being such a lovely, polite gentleman. He punches your arm.

 

John’s house is fairly far away, but it’s on the way to the coffee shop where Dirk’s working ironically in the time before he leaves for college. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to John’s and you give him a salute goodbye before continuing on to the shop. You’re left with Karkat to walk in silence, which is unusual because Karkat never shuts up.

“Dave,” he says as you walk and he shoves his hands in his pockets.

“He speaks!” You congratulate him. “I thought you’d gone mute.”

“Dave shut up,” he tells you, sending you a halfhearted glare. “I’m serious.”

Ah. Ah, serious. For a fleeting moment you worry that he’s going to try to talk to you about the incident from this morning, but then you remember how quiet and weird he’s been all day and realize that there must be something else, too.

“Alright, I’m serious. Hit me man, lay it on me,” you pause, trying to actually be serious for him.  “No but, for real, if you’ve got something important to say I’m listening.”

He’s silent, for another few seconds. “It’s getting worse,” he tells you, still walking with his hands tucked in his pockets. “The um, leukemia I mean. Like a lot worse. So…they’re gonna do a surgery on it on Sunday,” that’s in two days. “And maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t.”

“Are you saying that you won’t ever get better?” You ask softly.

“Mmm…no,” Karkat muses. “I guess if the surgery goes _really, really well,_ and then the treatment works even better I could get better. But in reality I probably won’t. Maybe the surgery won’t do anything, maybe it’ll help but not enough, maybe they’ll both help but it won’t ever go away. Who knows? Look, the point is it’s a dangerous surgery and…well, you know. Just thought I’d tell you.”

“That’s in two days.”

“I found out this morning. They needed to do it as soon as they could.” His voice puts the conversation to an end and you walk in slightly dismal silence.

“Well,” you tell him as you come to a stop outside of the coffee shop. “I know you’ll be fine.” He shoots you a little grin and lifts his hand is a small wave as you push open the door to the coffee shop. Dirk’s not anywhere out front so you hover by the door awkwardly.

“Oh!” A boy with black hair says, noticing you. “You’re probably Dave, right? Dirk told me you’d be here sometime around now. He’s in the back, if you wanna go see him. I’m Jake, by the way.” You nod, inspecting Jake. Your brothers mentioned him casually a couple of times—and by a couple of times you mean many times in many conversations. You daresay your brother has a certain fondness for this boy.

He leads you to a room in the back where Dirk has his feet on a table and is debating something with a girl who looks a little bit tipsy, but she’s also a girl you know well.

“Sup, Roxy?” You greet, avoiding your brother’s gaze.

“Sup, Dave?” She responds with a cheeky grin as she checks the time. “You’re like, hella late. But so am I. My shift started ten minutes ago—tell me, did you see an angry girl up front?” She says ‘front’ more like ‘frnt’.

“I saw a girl, but she didn’t seem angry,” you inform her, and she stands up and walks out to what you assume is her shift. Your gaze finally makes it over to where Dirk is and he sighs heavily, standing up and walking over to where you are. He doesn’t say much, just pulling you to his chest where you can place your head on his chest and breathe in his ironic too-much-cologne-smell.

“Sorry,” you mutter.

“Nah, you’re fine. You did good, kid, callin’ your friend. I’m not mad.” You relax, even if it’s just a little bit.

 

You take a place in the front at one of the tables, where you lean back against the wall and watch your brother and his three friends at work. Roxy and the other girl, Jane, bicker over little things here and there but overall seem to be pretty good friends. Sometimes they’ll team up to make comments about a rude customer who’d just left. Jake and Dirk have a whole other thing going on. Dirk doesn’t really do any of the interaction stuff, sticking more just to writing certain things down. Jake sometimes thinks of a pun or a joke to indulge your brother with, and Dirk smirks or snickers and gives one back. It’s pretty gay stuff.

You stay there for a while after that until they flip the sign on the door to say ‘closed’ and start cleaning up. Your brother’s not the most helpful, but he gets his job done and keeps everyone else sane while doing so. You can tell he enjoys working where he does. You personally are just kind of glad that he’s fairly distracted by his job and doesn’t bother you, leaving you to stay where you are and just watch them all interact. You aren’t entirely sure why it’s so interesting to you to watch them do so, but either way you enjoy it.


	18. Act Four, Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think...it's time to come back from hiatus...?
> 
> ((Lmao it's funny I said that because this is actually the last chapter.))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LMao @ 12 year old me: your dreams for this story flopped and as a high schooler you're a memefucker, a gay, and your don't know what the hell gender is. Sorry buddi, that's life.

When they’ve cleaned the store up they disappear to the back of the room to gather their things. You place your head in your hands on the table, sighing heavily and staring out the window. It’s been dark for a while now, but something that you’ve learned about New York is that it’s never really dark, at least not here in New York City in the middle of all the lights. You watch cars go by and people passing until the door to the back room swings open again. It’s Jane, who gives you a wide smile and waves good-bye.

“I’m not sure why you hung out with us today, Dave, but I had fun meeting you!”

She leaves just as the other three trickles out with their coats on. Dirk throws you yours and you shrug is on, pushing your chair back in after standing up. Roxy sneaks a cup of coffee on her way out (Jake rolls his eyes, but neither of them say anything about it) and goes her own way while Jake continues to walk with you and your brother. They talk about different things as they walk, from one rude customer who never gets off the phone when they come in to the elections that are coming up. When Jake, too, makes a separate turn from you they give their goodbyes while you hover next to Dirk. Then it’s just the two of you.

It’s cold out, and you focus on that rather than Dirk. It occurs to you that you’re colder now than earlier today when you almost flipped out and killed yourself, but you have no desire to do anything like that now. You’re walking close to Dirk, closer than normal, but he doesn’t object or step away from you.

“Dave,” he says, and you cringe. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t understand.” You don’t say anything, swallowing and continuing to walk. “I really don’t get most of this, no matter how much I look up or listen to your therapist. But that’s because it’s what you’re feeling, y’know? You’re the only one who really gets it. But…all the same. I get it, that sometimes you don’t know what sets you off and what doesn’t. But you do, other times. Talking about things to us, too, might help? Maybe? God, already, what I’m trying to say is neither of us knows what’s going on with you sometimes. You seem fine, most of the time, even when we both know you’re not. Little things, kid. Just tell us how you’re feeling when we ask. Got that?”

“Yeah,” you mumble. You do, that’s not hard, really.

“Good,” You feel him ruffle up your hair and you swat his hand away. He doesn’t say anything else and you don’t either. You know he usually takes the bus to work and back, but you’re glad he doesn’t this time. People on busses are irritating and it always smells like gasoline.

You’re both silent the rest of the way home and when you reach your apartment building and step inside you see Karkat leaning against the wall by the elevator. The doors are closed, so you assume he’s waiting for them to open. He’s with someone—his older brother, probably—and looks mildly irritated. He spots you, eyes drifting back over to his brother and rolling in a, _can you believe this guy?_ kind of way. You grin stopping by them as you join them in waiting for the elevator. Karkat’s brother stops talking to introduce himself. His name is Kankri, and that’s about all that you get before you tune him out and turn back to Karkat, who starts a conversation of your own. You let Dirk deal with the talkative one.

The doors open, but you’re in the middle of a very fascinating discussion about a movie you saw a while back. You tell Dirk you’ll meet him upstairs in a few minutes.

And it’s just you and Karkat, and the conversation drizzles down. You remember with a jolt that there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to die here real soon, which puts a real damper on things. He probably notices that’s where your thoughts have gone, frowning slightly.

“Shut up,” he tells you.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, but I can hear your stupid thoughts, asshole. So…shut up, okay?”

“Make me,” you smirk, and he turns slightly red. You realize now how that sounded.

Opening your mouth again to hastily tell him that _no, that’s not how you meant it,_ you feel him grab your shirt and yank you down to his level. His lips connect with yours and _holy shit, they’re softer than they look._ He does this all with a degree of gentleness before releasing your shirt and shoving you away, the darkest shade of red you’ve ever seen coating his face. You know for a fact you’re a darker shade of red, though.

“Um,” you say.

“Um,” he agrees. The elevator dings open again. An old woman walks out and you clear your throat, pushing off the wall and looking at him once more.

“I’ll see you soon,” you mumble, making eye contact with him. It occurs to you then that you may not see him in the next two days. You may _not_ see him soon. You may not ever see him again. And holy shit you’d be an asshole if you ended this awkwardly. “I’ll see you soon,” you repeat, more firmly this time. “Christmas Eve or something—New Year, at the latest. Always some good shit happening at New Year.”

Your both embarrassingly red still, but he seems to appreciate the fact that you’ve not lingered on the whole kiss thing. He nods slowly, frowning again.

“Um,” he says again, then pauses. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you at New Year.” He stays, you leave.

You lean against the wall of the elevator, puffing out a breath as soon as the doors shut. _You just kissed Karkat Vantas?_

_Karkat Vantas kissed you._

_You just **kissed Karkat Vantas.**_

_Yeah,_ you knew you liked guys. You liked John—er, you knew you liked guys. But Karkat? Did you like Karkat? Did Karkat like you? Or was he just being him? Was that a ‘well, if I’m going to die then I’m going to die having done this first’ kind of thing? Maybe all of them?

You aren’t sure. Did you like it? Well, you didn’t _not_ like it. Would you do it again? Well, you wouldn’t _not_ do it again. Would you date Karkat Vantas? You’re not sure. Then again, you’re not sure Karkat Vantas would want to date you, either. Maybe it’s a good thing that you don’t have crushes on _both_ of your best friends, because that would make things pretty awkward, you’re sure. Not that it isn’t awkward enough already just liking one of them.

Still.

You pause outside the door to your apartment, not wanting to go in just yet. Your head is still spinning and you know your face is still dusted in red. Your brothers are not kind enough to be merciful and not tease you about such things. You take several deep breaths in, walking in and making a slight beeline for your room. You manage to make it there without running into either of them and you fall onto your bed and bury your face in your pillow. Wow, your life is a little bit of a mess right now, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah it kind of is. God, Christmas is in three days now, isn’t it? Christmas Eve is the day after tomorrow. And where are you? Well, today you tried to kill yourself, you’re hopelessly crushing on one of your best friends while the other could die any die and you’re constantly nervous someone’s going to figure out that you have boobs—and oh wait, you’re pretty sure the whole school knows by now because _that’s right,_ not only did people find out, but said people _hate your guts._

You groan as loudly as you can.

“Is that how you’re feeling, kid?”

How long has Bro been in your room? He’s creepy as hell, being able to open a door without making a sound. You wonder if he’s ever considered being a robber.

On second thought, though, you hope that he hasn’t considered that particularly illegal career choice.

“Nah,” you tell him, voice muffled by your pillow.  “I’ve been pretty peachy lately. Y’know, today was a great day. Full of great opportunities, full of knowledge and enlightenment and all that shit.”

He doesn’t bother telling you to watch your language—you know he doesn’t care, not to mention the fact that he’s pretty much the cause.

“Here’s some enlightenment,” he replies. “You should probably take that binder off, I’ve got a feeling you didn’t take it off at all today. And, because I’m feeling generous, here’s another little bit of enlightenment. Not every day’s a good day, kiddo, and sometimes you’ve just gotta accept that. You’re probably fed up with hearing that, though, so here’s something a little better. We’ve got a couple shitty movies to watch—they’re best if you watch them at one A.M., and it is indeed one A.M.”

You agree to this, sitting up and waiting for him to leave you alone. You shrug your binder off, pulling on several layers instead. You have to admit it’s more comfortable, but you’d rather be a little uncomfortable in your own opinion. True to Bro’s word, they’re on the couch with one of the shittiest movie’s you’ve ever seen playing. You seize the smaller couch for yourself, sprawling out across it. With the exception of your little episode earlier today and some walking, all you’ve done today is sleep and sit in one place, so you aren’t really sure why you’re half asleep by the time you’re even beginning to understand what’s happening in the movie.

You don’t fall asleep this time, though, keeping your eyes open and glued to the television. Your mind wanders elsewhere the entire time, venturing from Karkat to school, and right back to Karkat. You know that you should probably be a little more hyped about your first kiss, but you’re still mind-bogglingly confused over it and you can’t help but feel that the mood of the memory is spoilt each time with the remembrance that hey, there’s a 45% chance that he’ll be dead before Christmas. Even if he lives through that, though, and manages to recover exceedingly well afterwards, even if the surgery goes completely without a hitch, there’s still a 50% chance that he’ll live through all that just fine and end up dying from the cancer anyway. He texted you the details as per your request. You kind of wish he hadn’t. Until then you’d thought it was like a 25% chance overall that he’d die anytime soon.

Yeah. That kind of ruins the mood, just a little bit.

But the movie’s alright in terms of it being shitty, but so shitty that it’s ironically good. That helps things a little bit.

You kind of wished that you could have a stunning revelation around then, realize that things could be worse and that everything was solvable, that everything was alright.

Instead you realize that boats and ships are two different things, which kind of fucked with you, but hey, whatever worked.

Neither of your brothers make a move to get up and return to their rooms, so you break the silence by getting up and walking back. The door clicks shut behind you. Your laptop is still on your bed, and you have a nagging feeling that if you open it and check your messages you’ll find something, whether it’s from Luke or John, but you also realize that you don’t want to read either of those right now. You really can’t forgive Luke for a lot of things, and though there’s no reason that talking to John would be a problem you can’t help but know that talking to him will somehow come back around to either today or the fact that you’ll return to school after winter break, which you really aren’t looking forward to.

You’re probably going to die a horrible death on the school grounds. You’re probably going to walk into school and find out that everyone knows. Not even everyone at your last school knew, which was mildly surprising.

In the long run you know that you’ll probably be alright, but that doesn’t stop you from cringing at the thought of having to return. Not to mention the fact that you’ll have to make up painfully large amounts of homework.

Yeah, no, you’ll stay off your laptop for a while. You return to the notebook that’s sitting on your desk still, thumbing through it idly and adding a caption to the back of a drawing of a bird of some kind. The caption is a pretty small quote from a book, but it’s a good book in your opinion and the quote is worthy of the notebook. It’s not much, but you don’t think hawks are hot stuff either, so it fits. You’ll save the good stuff for the drawings of people in the notebook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like this story is ending with Homestuck.
> 
> Alright. I'm sorry about orphaning this, I really am. This story was my life as a kid? But it's just been so long and bluhh...that's a chapter of my life that ended a long time ago. It's time to let it go, and I wasn't willing to do that until now, but...well, maybe someday I'll rewrite it! If you'd like to know my penname to read more stories like this (written..better..) then feel free to contact me at Aobajosighs.tumblr.com. I write there too, and I take prompts.
> 
> This story just makes me cringe really hard to read now, to be honest. I deleted all the AWFUL, AWFUL author's notes. But at the same time, this is something that will always be important to me. I'll still check up on it, I'll still read your comments, I'll still post about it on Tumblr. So, tell me what you have to say below or on Tumblr, and I'll still do my best to reply. 
> 
> To everyone who followed this story, I'm just as sad to say goodbye to it. It's kind of like leaving you kid in a box outside someone's door without a note?? But this is my note, so, that's all this metaphorical baby gets. 
> 
> It's been fun writing it, but it's time to say goodbye to it. Thank you all again. 
> 
> -Beckett

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Lost Boys {CURRENTLY DISCONTINUED.}](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6130505) by [astrowrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrowrites/pseuds/astrowrites)




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